The state department said Mr Kerry will not meet with Cuban president Raul Castro, or his brother Fidel, who turned 89 on Thursday and ruled the island nation for almost 50 years.
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Both the U.S. and Cuban embassies re-opened on July 20.
“We [the U.S.] are so hungry for this deal that we are willing to overlook a hundred peaceful dissidents arrested just a few hours before the opening of our embassy”, said Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American.
The U.S. delegation to Cuba includes Kerry and other executive branch officials, as well as Democratic Sens.
The three former Marines, however, have been called back to Cuba to perform one final task for their nation: to once again raise the flag they thought they’d never see fly over Havana as the U.S. officially reopens its embassy in the Cuban capital on Friday.
“That is a government-to-government moment, with very limited space, by the way, which is why we’re having the reception later in the day at which we can have a cross-section of civil society including some dissidents”, Kerry told Telemundo.
And now Blanco, a child of Cuban immigrants, will put his poetic stamp on another historic event – the re-opening of a U.S. embassy in Havana, Cuba. This is not a story about a Cuban government that’s saying we’re in the process of reform, we need time, be patient with us.
Cuba’s government has silenced many artists who dare to criticize the regime, people like Cuban performance artist Tania Bruguera who has been frequently detained and had her passport confiscated by authorities. But not meeting them at all, they said, would send an equally bad signal. 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”.
Kerry also disputed criticism from Republicans in Congress that the Obama administration has given away everything without getting anything in return on the human rights front. In the decades since, the seven-floor structure had served as an “interests section”, as Cuba had maintained in Washington until last month. Opposition groups say that crackdowns on dissidents continue and restrictions of free speech and media remain, despite US pressure to improve human rights.
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Jim Tracy, who also helped lower the flag and will be on hand on Friday, said he was “really excited” about the new era in US-Cuba relations. In a separate letter, he requested that Kerry meet with dissidents while in the country and invite them to an event at the embassy.
