Shelton, an Alexandria businessman, was at the newly reopened United States Embassy in Havana Friday as the American flag was raised in a ceremony celebrating renewed relations between the countries.
Advertisement
Retired U.S. Marines presented the U.S. flag to Marines now stationed in Cuba.
But Obama faces an uphill battle as he needs approval from Congress, where both houses are now controlled by his Republican opponents – many of them deeply hostile to Havana.
Hundreds of Cubans outside the embassy cheered as Mr Kerry spoke.
Julio Garcia is a 51-year-old mechanic.
And in Cuba, dissidents have expressed concern that closer ties between the governments will leave them out in the cold.
Cuban television switched from cartoons to live coverage of the U.S. embassy flag-raising, and broadcast Kerry’s arrival at Havana’s Jose Marti airport.
HAVANA, Cuba _ Richard Blanco, a Cuban-American poet who read his poem at President Obama’s second inauguration, gave a unifying message when he recited a new poem Friday at a ceremony that marked the first time in 54 years that the American flag flew over the U.S. Embassy in Cuba. Another, Mike East, stated that re-establishing relations means a lot, as there are “a great number of people who have been affected, separated families and everything that’s happened”. “To see Old Glory flying for the last time in Cuba, it was… just didn’t seem right”.
Not everyone is celebrating the diplomatic rapprochement.
In a newspaper column published on his 89th birthday Thursday, Fidel Castro repeated claims the U.S. owes Cuba millions of dollars in damages caused by a long-standing trade embargo.
In New York, he said the opening has ensured the socialist Cuban “regime will receive global legitimacy and a substantial economic boost to benefit its repression”.
On Friday Kerry acknowledged that while the raising of the flag was historic, the road to diplomatic harmony between the U.S. and Cuba has just begun.
Berta Soler, the leader of the Ladies in White – one of the most high-profile dissident groups – said she had no plans to attend the event. It reopened in 1977 in a scaled-back capacity known as the U.S. Interests Section under the protection of the Embassy of Switzerland.
The State Department conceded the ceremony was not limited to government officials, extending invitations to select private individuals.
Advertisement
As for a time frame on when relations will possibly be fully normalized, Kerry said “The sooner we can get to our normalization, the better”.
