One of the last vestiges of the Cold War was buried this afternoon, when President Obama set foot in Cuba. But the economic and political relationship has changed rapidly in the 15 months since Obama and President Raul Castro restored ties.
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Obama is joined by four cabinet secretaries and 40 members of Congress with the aim of making the breakthrough December 17th, 2014 agreement to normalise relations between the countries “irreversible”.
The White House has made it clear President Obama will meet political dissidents, whether the Cuban authorities like it or not.
In 2015, the Cuban government, which tightly controls Internet access on the island, opened dozens of the public Wi-Fi areas following a decision by the Obama administration to allow US telecom companies to do business in Cuba.
As President Barack Obama arrived in Havana on Sunday Ted Cruz slammed the president’s visit, calling it “so sad, and so injurious to our future as well as Cuba’s, that Obama has chosen to legitimize the corrupt and oppressive Castro regime with his presence on the island”.
Still, the historic significance of Obama’s visit was impossible to overlook.
It was hoped Mr Obama’s arrival would pass without the panic caused by the last visit by a sitting United States president, Calvin Coolidge in 1928. Their experiences in the one-party state help explain why some Cuban-Americans see Obama’s outreach as a disgraceful embrace of a government whose practices and values betray much of what America stands for.
President Obama will spend two and half days in Cuba accompanied by first lady Michelle Obama, their two daughters Malia and Sasha, and his mother-in-law, Marian Robinson.
During Obama’s three day trip, he’ll meet with Castro and representatives of the private sector before delivering a historic speech in Havana.
What is his itinerary today? “It only took me 3 hours”, Obama joked during a meeting with staff from the freshly reopened United States embassy in Havana.
But Elizardo Sánchez, the head of the Cuban Commission on human Rights and National Reconciliation, said that the protesters had no real reason for believing that the Cuban government under President Raúl Castro would cease arresting the protesters out of respect for Obama’s three-day visit to the country.
He was met on the Tarmac by Cuban officials – but not Mr Castro, who planned to receive his visitor at the Palace of the Revolution.
How are the Cubans reacting? He says change has been slow in Cuba, but the diplomatic opening is “a big step forward”.
“I started going to Cuba in the late 1990s during the Elián González custody saga, when tens of thousands of people were being bused in by the government to protest delays in the boy’s return to Cuba”, she says. They’re typically detained briefly and then released, a scene that plays out in Havana each Sunday.
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Plainclothes agents blocked off streets, buildings in the area were put under temporary lockdown, and ordinary Cubans were hard to find anywhere close to Obama’s route – easily outnumbered by security agents and foreign tourists. The city’s seaside Malecon promenade was largely deserted Sunday morning except for a few cars, joggers, fishermen and pelicans.
