“I’m not going to, frankly, get into detail, walking through his schedule for that day, who he’s going to meet with, where, and what and how that’s going to look”, Toner said. The Cuban government labels its domestic opponents as traitorous U.S. mercenaries.
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However, the senior State Department official said the move to re-establish relations would allow the U.S.to continue and “hopefully accelerate” its engagement with Cuba on issues such as human rights and law enforcement.
Kerry will preside over a ceremony to raise the U.S. flag at the recently restored U.S. embassy, the result of detente reached between Raul Castro and U.S. President Barack Obama last December.
Presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is calling the embassy omissions a “slap in the face” to democracy activists in Cuba.
I want to talk about Cuba, because it was announced today that the Department of State will not be inviting Cuban dissidents to the reopening of the embassy that John Kerry will preside over. “We do not have specific information about which members of civil society the secretary will meet”.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Thursday reminded the U.S. that it owes damages to Cuba stretching to “millions of dollars”, while pledging that his country will never stop fighting for peace and the well-being of all humanity.
Castro himself penned a piece blasting several aspects of America’s past, from its use of nuclear bombs in World War II to the “numerous millions of dollars” it owes Cuba for its decades-long embargo.
At the time, Schultz told them, “We are with you”.
“I can’t speak to what we may have, or may not have, shared with, or discussed with the Cuban government”, he said. The biggest question remaining is how many average Cuban citizens will turn out to witness the historic moment. The meeting will include a “lower-key” flag raising ceremony, according to the Associated Press.
Dissident Yoani Sanchez’s online newspaper 14ymedio has received no credential for the U.S. embassy event, said editor Reinaldo Escobar, who is married to Sanchez.
Blanco, now a resident of Maine, was chosen to read his new poem during the re-opening ceremony before a crowd of Cuban officials and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
The trade embargo the US imposed on Cuba in 1962 – three years after Castro seized power by ousting a US-backed regime – remains in effect despite the renewed relations.
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Sarah Margon, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, said there’s been a rise in short-term detentions by Cuban authorities “as a warning for activists and those who are trying to bring change to Cuba”.
