Barack Obama on Sunday became the first U.S. president in 88 years to visit Cuba, hailing an “historic opportunity” to cast aside decades of Cold War enmity with the communist state.
Advertisement
The deals come just as Cuba is expecting an influx of tourists from the U.S. Last year, the country received over 3.5 million tourists from around the world.
But White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes insisted that the subject will be brought up and that Obama will also meet members of Cuba’s beleaguered opposition, “people who’ve shown great courage in pursuing their rights and pursuing a better future for the Cuban people”.
Holding an umbrella against a light rain, Obama and the first family were greeted by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla.
The White House says eight USA senators and 31 members of the House are joining the president for the historic trip.
Traveling with first lady Michelle Obama, her mother and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, the president met first with staff of the newly reopened U.S. Embassy at a Havana hotel.
Even Cubans critical of their government say they fear that USA consumerism will change the languidly paced, family-centered life that many Cubans see as one of the main appeals of life on the island.
Earlier in the day, as they have for 46 consecutive Sundays, the dissident Ladies in White marched along Havana’s Fifth Avenue to demand respect for human rights and amnesty for political prisoners. Cuban police briefly detained more than 200 activists in the days before the visit, dissidents said.
Maryanne Westphal and Barbara Eidam, both 67 and friends since high school, were finishing up a week in Cuba on a cultural exchange on Saturday and said they heartily support Obama’s decision to reestablish ties and the cultural outreach.
President Barack Obama’s entrance struck a much more low-key tone.
He says “we are practically neighbors” and Cuba’s political system “doesn’t mean we have to be enemies”.
The president’s schedule in Cuba is jam-packed, including official meetings with Raul Castro and an event with United States and Cuban entrepreneurs. The US severed diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 after Fidel Castro’s revolution sparked fears of communism spreading to the Western Hemisphere.
He said the plan is for the factory to assemble kits that are made in the United States, along with some “off the shelf” parts from various sources.
Alexandra Perraud is a 25-year-old law school student in Chicago who’s spending her spring break studying law at a university in Havana.
Workers recently spruced up Havana’s Estadio Latinoamericano, which is home to the Cuban baseball league’s most prominent team, Industriales.
People stood on the side of the road near the airport as the motorcade passed by – some of the Cubans at the side of the road waved at the Americans in the cars.
Obama’s whirlwind trip is a crowning moment in his and Cuban President Raul Castro’s ambitious effort to restore normal relations between their countries.
Advertisement
The number of protesters, counter-protesters and police appeared to be about the same as in past incidents, which take place in the Cuban capital each Sunday after the Ladies attend Catholic Mass, march silently along 5th Avenue and then join other dissidents to try to march into a residential neighborhood.
