President Obama Arrives In Cuba As ‘Historic’ Visit
KABUL: (MEP) President Barack Obama along with his family on Sunday evening landed in Cuba, savoring the adulation of Cubans welcoming him warmly despite a driving rain as he began a history-making visit.
Cuban authorities have arrested more than 50 anti-government protesters just hours before Obama’s visit in the country, marring the beginning of a rare three-day visit to the island nation – the first for a US president in almost 90 years.
It’s a shift that the change-minded president hopes will nudge the Communist government here to grant more freedoms to its people and open new economic channels for American businesses. The President and his allies also hope a successful détente will offer something bigger: a lasting example of diplomacy’s power in dealing with longtime foes.
Joined by his wife Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha on board Air Force One, Obama arrived at Havana’s airport as he was greeted by some of the Cuban top officials, including Cuba’s foreign minister and US ambassador, while an official meeting with President Raul Castro is set to take place later during the extraordinary three-day visit.
Mr. Obama himself marveled aloud at the significance of his trip.
“It’s a historic opportunity to engage directly with the Cuban people and to forge new agreements and commercial deals,” he told employees of the United States Embassy, his first stop in the country, “and build new ties between our two peoples, and for me to lay out my vision for a future that’s brighter than our past.”
Jose Daniel Ferrer, a Cuban dissident who was imprisoned for eight years beginning in 2008, said Obama could act like President Ronald Reagan, demanding immediate improvements in human rights just as Reagan demanded the Soviet Union “tear down this wall.”
But Ferrer, speaking in an interview with CNN in his home Sunday, conceded that even incremental change is beneficial to the island’s politically oppressed citizenry.
“Obama’s visit is good for the people and good for the cause,” he said. Ferrer is among the dissidents meeting Obama on Tuesday.
