Brushing off decades of distrust, US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro shook hands on Monday in Havana’s Palace of the Revolution, opening a meeting aimed at advancing the diplomatic opening that both leaders have pursued.
Obama and Castro stood together as a Cuban military band played the national anthems of Cuba and the United States — stunning sounds in a country where resistance to the US has been part of the Government’s national mission for decades. Obama and top US officials warmly greeted their Cuban counterparts before the two Presidents sat down for their meeting.
For Obama, there’s no better place than Havana to show that engagement can do more than isolation to bring about change on the communist island. Yet for the Cubans, the glaring question is whether their own Government is ready to prove the ambitious diplomatic opening is more than just talk.
Rain, deserted streets and hordes of police — this was the Havana greeting Barack Obama, who arrived with his family. Obama is the first US President to touch down on the island, barely an hour’s flight from Florida, in 88 years.
The view from Obama’s armoured Cadillac, nicknamed “the Beast,” would have been a long way from the postcard vision of sun-splashed Cuban mansions and sparkling blue seafront.
As Air Force One landed in Havana, Obama cheerfully began the landmark trip by tweeting in local slang, “Que bola CubaIJ” — or “What’s upIJ”
later, he noted that the last US President to come, Calvin Coolidge in 1928, needed three days to make the trip by train and navy ship.
“This is a historic visit,” he remarked to staff at the freshly reopened US embassy in Havana.
Obama opened his first full day in Cuba by adjusting a wreath at the memorial to Jose Marti, where a 59-foot statue pays tribute to the Cuban independence hero and writer. He then entered the Palace of the Revolution and where he was met by Castro before the two inspected a military Guard of Honour.
The trip has been touted mostly for its huge symbolic value, and comes more than a year after Obama and Castro surprised the world in December 2014 by announcing that their countries would begin normalising relations.
“The presence of a US President on the island for the first time since the 1959 revolution marks a transcendental change in relations between the US and Cuba,” said Michael Shifter, head of the Inter-American Dialogue thinktank.
But some tough issues are up for discussion. Although the embargo can only be lifted by Congress, where Republicans are far less keen on rapprochement, the Obama administration is chipping away at the edges of the sanctions.
For example, a trickle of US visitors over recent years is soon expected to turn into a flood with the lifting of an onerous requirement that they go to Cuba as part of pre-approved groups.
But while pushing for an easing of the decades-long sanctions regime, the White House continues to press for greater human rights in a country where the Communist Party maintains its grip on every key institution and little dissent is tolerated.
On Tuesday, Obama will meet with a few human rights activists. He will also give a speech -- the main set piece of his trip -- that will be carried live on Cuban television, an unprecedented concession from the authorities.
He will round off the trip by attending a baseball game between the Cuban national team and Major league Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays.
Although meant to be a celebration of shared love for the game, the occasion will also highlight yet another cause of tension: the talent drain of Cuban stars attracted by the lure of the big-money US circuit.