“I think the reopening of the embassies brings hope to the Cuban people”.
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“I wouldn’t want to miss it”, Marcos Rodriguez, 28, said outside the embassy.
In an open letter, he said relations between the two countries will only be fully restored once the trade embargo is lifted.
“The right thing to do would be to invite us and hear us out despite the fact that we don’t agree with the new U.S. policy”, said Antonio Rodiles, head of the dissident group Estado de SATS.
Cuban-American poet Richard Blanco, who read one of his works at Obama’s second inauguration in 2013, delivered a stirring new poem that drew on the commonality between residents of the United States and Cuba.
Despite their reconciliation, Havana and Washington are both requesting compensation from each other, one side for damages related to the economic embargo, the other to the expropriation of US property in the 1959 Cuban revolution. The event will see officials from the Cuban Government, various US Government agencies, Congress members, as well as some US and Cuban private citizens.
Castro made no mention either of Kerry’s visit to reopen the embassy, a step that comes eight months after Obama and Castro’s successor and brother Raul announced plans to restore relations. These people – the dissidents in Cuba who have fought tirelessly for democracy and human rights, and who continue to suffer regular beatings and arrests – will not be witnesses to the flag-raising.
Kerry, speaking before assembled dignitaries, remembered the strained history of U.S.-Cuba relations, including the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union was discovered to be siting nuclear rockets on the island-nation.
Kerry’s visit marks the first time a high ranking American government official will visit the island since the relations soured between the two countries decades ago. Much like the agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, the United States chose the path of least resistance.
“The politically driven manipulation of the State Department’s 2015 Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report is an embarrassment for the Obama Administration that threatens to set back U.S. efforts against human trafficking around the world”, wrote Rubio. “We have to wait and see how events develop and if there really will be benefits for the two peoples”.
The three Marines who lowered the flag in 1961, when U.S. diplomats were expelled by Communist leader Fidel Castro, delivered the flag to the current Marine detachment.
In an interview with Telemundo, the US-based Spanish-language network, Kerry said he also intends to try his hand at personal diplomacy by taking a stroll in Old Havana, “meeting whoever I meet and listening to them and having, you know, whatever views come at me”. “The time has come for us to move in a more promising direction”.
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“We will talk very directly about a sort of roadmap toward real, full normalisation”, he said.
