Presidents of the USA and Cuba have held their first meeting on Cuban soil in nearly 90 years. President Barack Obama and President Raul Castro hailed a ‘new day’ in relations, despite ongoing differences.
After talks between Obama and President Raul Castro on Monday, the US President said the two had “frank and candid” discussions about human rights as well as areas of cooperation.
“We continue to have serious differences, including on democracy and human rights,” Obama said at a joint news conference after their meeting. He said that human rights remained an impediment to strengthening of ties. A “full flowering” of the relationship could only happen with progress on the issue of rights.
“In the absence of that, I think it will continue to be a very powerful irritant,” Obama said at the news conference that was broadcast live on Cuban state television.
Obama has become the first sitting US president to visit the Caribbean island since 1928. He hailed a “new day,” speaking in Spanish “nuevo dia,” in relations between the former Cold War foes. Since 2014 there have been talks between the two countries, some of them facilitated by the Vatican.
In Havana’s Palace of the Revolution, Obama vowed that “Cuba’s destiny will not be decided by the United States or any other nation.”
However, Obama said that the US “will continue to speak up on behalf of democracy.”
Earlier in the day, Obama laid a wreath at the memorial to the 19th Century poet, writer and independence hero Jose Marti. He wrote in the guest book: “It is a great honour to pay tribute to Jose Marti, who gave his life for independence of his homeland. His passion for liberty, freedom, and self-determination lives on in the Cuban people today.”
Differences
It was the third meeting between the two presidents. Castro acknowledged there were still “profound” differences over human rights and the decades-old US economic embargo. He pointedly refused to acknowledge that Cuba holds political prisoners.
“Give me a list of those political prisoners right now and if the list exists they will be released before the night is through,” Castro said.
Castro said that the two countries could achieve much better ties if the US lifted its 54-year-old trade embargo on the island and handed back the Guantanamo Bay base to Cuba.
On a lighter note, the Cuban president said the former enemies should be inspired by the US endurance swimmer Diana Nyad, who in 2013 managed on her fifth attempt to become the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. “If she can do it, we can do it too,” Castro said.
The sporting theme continues on Tuesday, with a baseball match between the Cuban national team and visiting Tampa Bay Rays from Florida which the presidents are due to attend.
Change will come to Cuba – Obama
Obama has advocated for democratic reforms in Cuba, on the first visit by a sitting US president since 1928. Monday’s meeting with Castro may get heated, as Obama told US television that he would push for more reforms.
During a historic visit to Cuba, US President Obama said he would discuss the human rights situation in the communist nation with Cuban President Raul Castro, saying Havana was “stifling dissent.”
As the US lifts its decades-old travel and trade restrictions on the Communist-led island, American hotel chains and booking services are jostling for a stake in the Carribean island’s hospitality market.
“Change is going to happen here and I think that Raul Castro understands that,” the president told David Muir of US channel ABC television. “But what we have seen is the reopening of the embassy and although we still have significant differences around human rights and individual liberties inside of Cuba, we felt that coming now would maximize our ability to prompt more change.”
Obama on Monday became the first sitting US president to visit the island in 88 years.
In December 2014, both Obama and Castro announced they would begin normalizing relations, which led to Washington re-opening its embassy in Cuba in 2015.
Cuba, meanwhile, has complained ahead of the visit about continued US economic sanctions, which can only be lifted with the approval of the Republican-controlled Congress. Obama has since sought to use his executive authority to loosen trade restrictions on the Caribbean island, having failed in efforts to convince Congress to rescind the sanctions.
Tough talks?
Washington cut diplomatic ties with Cuba after Raul’s brother Fidel Castro led an armed insurgency against the US-backed government of Fulgencio Batista, ousting him in 1959.
Fidel established a single-party system that dominated the country’s political scene and established a Soviet-style economy. In 2015, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said “freedom of information is extremely limited in Cuba,” ranking the country 169 out of 180 on its press freedom index.
“There’s no doubt that the Cuban government is still a one-party state that’s exerting control and that’s stifling dissent,” Obama said in the ABC interview.
The president expected to meet with his counterpart Castro to push for economic and political reforms, including opening the political landscape to critics and opposition parties.
Baseball brings Cuban defector Dayron Varona home for the biggest game of his life
A Cuban baseball player’s exile to America and unexpected return to his family in Havana is a fitting symbol of reunion for two baseball-crazed countries. On Tuesday, it’s time to play ball.
The following tweet is from Evan Longoria, a star professional baseball player for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the US state of Florida.
Varon left the island nation in 2013, determined to pursue a baseball career in the United States. He’d previously played in Cuba’s national amateur league, the Serie Nacional.
But his decision had enormous consequences: It meant exile from the country he’d grown up in. He was defecting, which could lead to a permanent travel ban. Most importantly, it meant he wouldn’t be seeing family members – potentially for decades.
Still, he followed his dream. Dozens of Cuban baseball players had defected before him with some landing contracts in the tens of millions of dollars: Jose Contreras of the New York Yankees, Rusney Castillo of the Boston Red Sox, Jose Abreu of the Chicago White Sox.
It didn’t work out that way for Varon.
After Tampa Bay signed him, he was transferred between the team’s semi-professional farm programs. Nor was he expected to play in the professional league this year.
He was happily surprised, then, to find out that he’d been invited for a friendly match between the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Cuba’s national team as part of the US president’s historic visit to the country. Still, he worried that immigration politics might foil the trip to his home country and to his family.
“When I get off at the airport and reach the soil of Cuba, that’s the moment I’ll believe,” he told the Spanish-language division of sports news broadcaster ESPN.
As takeoff loomed, he composed just the second tweet of his life.
The stock image translates roughly to “I’m off.”
When he landed at the airport, it was finally time to “believe.” After meeting some family members there, more awaited at the team’s hotel.
The Tuesday game will be attended by US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro, the capstone of a three-day visit after decades of isolation.
But when Varona appears as first player to bat – and in the biggest game of his life – expect the politicians to be easily drowned out by the roar of 55,000 Cubans in the Estadio Latinoamericano, the heart of the baseball nation.
-DW.COM