Presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is calling the embassy omissions a “slap in the face” to democracy activists in Cuba.
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The senior official indicated that Cuban dissidents would not be part of the flag-raising ceremony at the U.S. Embassy.
Miami republican lawmakers took time Wednesday to slam the thawing of U.S. Cuba relations, specifically the opening of the U.S. embassy in Havana.
“Cuban dissidents are the legitimate representatives of the Cuban people and it is they who deserve America’s red-carpet treatment, not Castro regime officials”, he continued.
Under terms negotiated for restoring diplomatic ties, the official said, Cuban citizens are now able to visit the U.S. embassy freely to use its Internet connection, meet diplomats and engage in educational programs without restrictions and without Cuban government approval.
The US imposed its full trade embargo on Cuba in 1962, three years after Fidel Castro seized power and turned the island into a communist stronghold.
“There are points where you saw you made progress, things slipped back, you pushed up the hill again and here we are today”, Thale says.
In this photo released by the state media Cubadebate web site, Cuba’s leader Fidel Castro delivers a speech to members of a Cuban medical brigade who arrived recently from Bolivia, in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, August 17, 2010.
Although U.S. policy towards the island nation has focused on dissidents for years, they are not invited to the ceremony.
But as symbolically significant as Friday’s ceremony along Havana’s waterfront Malecón will be – it will be the first visit to Cuba by a secretary of State since 1945 – it remains unclear how much real change the warm-up in US-Cuba relations will bring. But there have been various reports of Cuban protesters being arrested since then.
“In the United Nations General Assembly we calculated the cost of the blockade was approximately US $117 billion”, said executive secretary of ECLAC, Alicia Barcena. The Cuban government has given no indication it is willing to provide compensation, though President Raúl Castro said in April during the Summit of the Americas in Panama that he is willing to discuss “everything”.
Polls show most Americans favor renewed diplomatic relations with Cuba.
“It is principally a government-to-government event”, the official said, “signifying this new relationship and the re-opening of the embassy”.
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“Colonial Systems of The World”, one of that month’s features, summarized the colonial policies of Great Britain and questioned how the U.S. could best open its domestic markets to its new territories-Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Hawaii.
