Obama to visit Cuba after era of hostility

Later this March, Barack Obama will make the first U.S. presidential trip to the Caribbean nation since 1928, adding an exclamation point to the ongoing normalisation process between the U.S. and Cuba.

Obama will meet Cuban President Raul Castro, entrepreneurs, and people from different walks of life during the trip on March 21 and 22. He will also meet with dissidents.

Obama’s visit carries huge symbolic value and prestige as his administration takes steps to expand commerce with the island nation, only 90 miles (145 km) from Florida. There have been 13 U.S. presidents who have come and gone since former President Calvin Coolidge made his visit. He was welcomed by his counterpart, Gerardo Machado, who oversaw the construction of the Cuban Capitol building, modelled after the one in Washington. Machado’s rule came during a time of close, and often dependent, financial ties between Cuba and the United States. When Obama makes the trip, he and ‘Silent Cal’ will be the only two sitting presidents to have ever made such a visit.

Obama’s visit will come shortly after the one-year mark since the normalisation process began in December, 2014.

Since then, respective embassies have reopened marking the restoration of diplomatic ties, figures as prominent as the U.S. secretary of state have already visited Cuba, the country’s leaders Raul Castro and Barack Obama have met a number of times, and some U.S. trade, travel and investment restrictions have been lifted.

Discussions have also begun regarding the thorniest issue facing the two countries — the settling of claims from the Cubans whose property was nationalised, as well as for reparations as a result of the embargo.

A change in course, that a generation ago would have been considered inconceivable, is even finding support in four politically vital U.S. states including Ohio and Iowa; a recent poll conducted by the Atlantic Council found 68 percent of those surveyed approve of the restoration of diplomatic ties, versus 26 percent who disapprove.

Challenges remain. While Washington is expected to soon unveil a long-awaited plan outlining how it would close the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, it remains open on the Cuban island. The U.S. embargo also still stands, much to the chagrin of Havana, which is calling for reparations. Its elimination will require approval by the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress.

Cuban dissidents, for their part, were not invited to the formal ceremony in Havana in which the U.S. flag was raised at the newly opened embassy even as Washington continues to press for political openness on the island.

The past year has by all measures drawn to a close a historical era marked by struggle, enmity and survival.

Days before the formal restoration of diplomatic ties in July, Cuban President Raul Castro said the island nation was prepared to break with the contentious past and peacefully coexist with the United States. The two countries began secret negotiations on restoring ties in mid-2013, leading to the historic announcement on Dec. 17, 2014, when Castro and U.S. President Barack Obama said they had swapped prisoners and would seek to normalise relations.

At a ceremony the following month in Havana, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry concurred.

“My friends, we are gathered here today because our leaders, President Obama and President Castro, made a courageous decision to stop being the prisoners of history

In attending a formal ceremony in which the U.S. flag was raised, Kerry became the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Cuba in 70 years.

Accompanied by security, Kerry then took a walking tour of Old Havana.

The previous deep freeze in U.S.-Cuba ties dated to Jan. 1, 1959, when rebels led by brothers Fidel and Raul Castro toppled the U.S.-backed government of Fulgencio Batista. The Castros halted the long-time U.S.-friendly business climate in Cuba and drew ever closer to the Soviet Union.

All along, Obama has aimed to maintain focus on the lack of openness in Castro-led Cuba; after announcing his March visit via twitter, Obama sent a tweet in which he said, “we still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly. America will always stand for human rights around the world.”

The deepening of the gulf between the two neighbours was the backdrop of a major family drama that became a stand-in for bilateral tensions.

When Obama announced the move to normalise relations last December, he said it was time to “cut loose the shackles of the past.”

In a speech at the White House, Obama said the thaw in relations after a five-decade freeze was made after he determined the “rigid” and outdated policy of the past failed to have an impact on Cuba.

“Today, the United States of America is changing its relationship with the people of Cuba and the most significant changes in our policy in more than 50 years. We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests. And instead we will begin to normalise relations between our two countries,” he said.

Speaking the same day in Cuba, Raul Castro embraced the new openness.

“As a result of a dialogue at the highest levels, including a telephone conversation yesterday with President Barack Obama, we’ve been able to reach solutions in several areas of interest for both nations,” he said.

During the same month of the joint announcements, the dissident Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which keeps track of activists in the different opposition groups, counted a total of 114 political prisoners on the island, although the number included 12 on parole after being released plus several others who had since been freed.

In the ensuing months, high level talks took place leading up to the 2015 Summit of the Americas in Panama City.

Then at the summit itself, U.S. President Barack Obama met Cuban President Raul Castro and the two men agreed to push ahead on improving relations. Describing their private meeting as “historic,” Obama said the two countries could end the antagonism of the Cold War era, although he said he would continue to pressure the regime on democracy and human rights.

At their 80-minute meeting in Panama, Obama and Castro sat side by side in polished, wooden chairs in a small conference room. The mood was cordial but businesslike. Both wore dark suits and each nodded and smiled at some of the comments made by the other in brief statements to reporters before they began their talks.

Castro said at the time he would continue to take steps toward normalising relations with Washington, and was open to discussing human rights and other issues.

Days after the meeting, Obama told Congress he intended to remove Cuba from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, clearing the way for restoring diplomatic relations.

That event occurred in May, 2015, and was announced by the U.S. State Department.

“I am sure many have seen but just to point out that we issued this morning a statement about the rescission of Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. It is effective today, May 29, 2015. And, this reflects our assessment after undertaking the review that was requested by the president, our assessment that Cuba meets the statuary criteria for rescission,” U.S. State Department Spokesman Jeff Rathke announced from Washington.

The two leaders sat down for another discussion at the United Nations General assembly in September.

According to Sweig, a Cuba with a normal relationship with the United States is primed to continue what the younger Castro has already begun to set in motion.

“Being able to take the United States off the table as a domestic political actor (in Cuba), remove what had been for so long the perception of the United States as a national security threat to Cuba will help that reform dynamic (under Raul Castro) consolidate, solidify and advance on the island,” she told Reuters.

With diplomatic ties restored, the two countries separated by 90 miles (145 km) of sea will now begin the more difficult and lengthy task of normalising overall relations.

In the eyes of many Cubans, such a feat may mean a loss of special special migration status Washington has long used to try and undermine the Castro regime. Previously, Cuban immigrants arriving on land were welcomed in the north and allowed to stay. And so, more than than 1,000 Cubans found themselves stuck at Central American border crossings in the fall in an attempt to reach the United States.

For his part, Castro said completely normal relations with the United States would be impossible as long as Washington maintains its economic embargo against the island.

Obama, a Democrat, has eased parts of the U.S. embargo but would need the Republican-controlled Congress to lift it completely.

Castro also said full normalisation would require the return to Cuban sovereignty of the U.S. naval base at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay.

Obama arrives in Cuba on March 21 and will stay till the following day.