As a U.S. Army brass band played the American national anthem, the three elderly Marines who last lowered the flag here in January 1961 handed a new, folded banner to the young members of the new contingent of Marine guards, who raised it and saluted.
Crowds of several hundred Cubans, some of them waving small American flags, stood behind barricades outside the iron fence surrounding the embassy. When the army brass band played the Cuban national anthem, some in the crowd outside shouted "Viva."
Before an invited audience of about 300 U.S. and Cuban officials, along with foreign diplomats, Kerry praised President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro for what he called "a courageous decision to stop being prisoners of history and to focus on the opportunities of today and tomorrow."
Saying that "the time has come for us to move in a more promising direction," Kerry said that "in the United States, that means recognizing that U.S. policy is not the anvil on which Cuba's future will be forged." Cuba's future, he said, "is for Cubans to shape."
But, he warned Cuba's communist leaders, "the United States will always remain a champion of democratic principles and reforms."
"We remain convinced that the people of Cuba would be best served by a genuine democracy, where people are free to choose their leaders, express their ideas and practice their faith; where the commitment to economic and social justice is realized more fully; where institutions are answerable to those they serve; and where civil society is independent and allowed to flourish."
Kerry is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Cuba since the Franklin Roosevelt administration.
"As two people who are no longer enemies or rivals, but neighbors," he said in English and Spanish, it is "time to unfurl our flags, raise them up and let the world know that we wish each other well."
Kerry also met with Cuban civil society leaders, including a selection of political dissidents. While many support the opening, others have joined some U.S. lawmakers in charging that the administration gave up the principal U.S. leverage in Cuba and got little in return from the repressive government.
Kerry has rejected criticism that Cuban dissidents were not invited to attend the morning embassy ceremony, describing it as a "government to government event." Several senior administration officials, discussing the sensitive issue on condition of anonymity, said they were taken aback by the criticism.
"You don't hold an official event to which the host government is invited and make it a forum for government opponents," said one.
Kerry said that human rights would be "at the top of our agenda" in discussions Friday with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. He said the United States is committed to pursuing "tough" issues, including human rights, with the Cuban government, and that further progress will be necessary for normalization of relations to proceed.
In a late afternoon meeting with reporters who traveled here with him, Kerry defended administration handling of human rights issues. "Certain things are going to be required," he said, "and one of them will be progress on that front." He said he told Rodriguez that there would be little chance of persuading Congress to lift the embargo without human rights improvement.
Under the new process for dialogue agreed Friday with Rodriguez, U.S.-Cuban issues are to be divided into three baskets of increasing difficult. The "easy" issues, Kerry said, include maritime issues, climate change and an environmental dialogue. A second package, he said, is "a little more complicated," dealing with issues such as civil aviation and internet connectivity — which the Cuban government has been slow to implement.
The third package of issues, Kerry said, are the "toughies," including human rights, law enforcement, fugitives from U.S. justice in Cuba and compensation claims on both sides. "There is no shying away from direct conversation" on tough issues, he said. The first round of talks on these issues, he said, would begin in Washington on Sept. 10.
Kerry, whose trip here was limited to one day, said he hopes to return to Cuba for a stay of several days sometime this winter, when he said he expected to meet with the Cuban president.
Rodriguez said he appreciated U.S. outreach, but gave no quarter in Cuba's complaints about U.S. policy and insistence that the "Cuba reality" is not the anti-democratic regime described in Washington.
"We are very much willing to talk about any of these issues," Rodriguez said of human rights and democracy, "except that in some of them it would be very difficult to reach an agreement."
"We also have our own concerns in the area of human rights in the United States," he said, noting racial "discrimination and brutality," among other issues.
Opponents of the opening in the United States were quick to criticize Kerry's visit. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush called it "a birthday present for Fidel Castro" — Cuba's revolutionary leader and former president who turned 89 on Thursday — and "a symbol of the Obama administration's acquiescence to his ruthless legacy."
The former Florida governor said that if he becomes president, he would "reverse Obama's strategy of accommodation and appeasement and commit to helping the Cuban people claim their freedom."
Two official planes carrying the U.S. delegation to the opening took off at dawn Friday morning. While they were in the air, workers hung the official U.S. seal and the words "Embassy of the United States of America" on the outside of the embassy building along Havana's broad seaside boulevard, the Malecón,
The embassy has been open for business since July 20. But the administration postponed the official opening ceremony until Kerry could schedule his visit. The official U.S. delegation included eight members of Congress, all of whom were long supporters of restoring relations.
During the flight, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., recalled she had first visited Cuba in 1977. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., wore a baseball cap dedicated to a personal hero, Cuban Minnie Minosa, the legendary White Sox left fielder. In his pocket, he carried a laminated 1961 Minosa baseball card, which he said he hoped to present as a gift to a worthy Cuban during the trip.
"Do you think Rodriguez would want it?" Cohen asked about the Cuban foreign minister.
At the morning embassy ceremony, Obama's inaugural poet, Richard Blanco, whose family left Cuba shortly before he was born in 1968, offered a reading of "Matters of the Sea," a poem he had written for the occasion.
"What matters is this: We all belong to the sea between us," he read.
Despite the restoration of relations, the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba remains in place. Obama has called for Congress to lift it, along with remaining restrictions on U.S. travel to the island, but lawmakers have resisted.
The embargo continues to be a rallying point for the Cuban government. In an article published Thursday in Granma, the official Cuban Communist Party paper, Fidel Castro criticized the United States for everything from dropping an atomic bomb on Japan near the end of World War II to setting the stage for global economic crisis by amassing most of the world's gold supply.
That crisis, Castro said, had battered Cuba's economy, even as it is "owed compensation equivalent to damages, which have reached many millions of dollars" as a result of the U.S. sanctions.
- - - - -
Washington Post staff writer Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.
Share
