For the first time in more than 54 years, the American flag on Friday, Aug. 14, was raised over the restored US Embassy in Havana, Cuba, marking the end of cold diplomatic relations between the two countries.
“We are gathered here because our leaders made a courageous decision to stop being prisoners of history,” said Secretary of State John Kerry, the highest-ranking US official to visit the communist nation since World War II, NBC News reported.
Kerry presided over the flag-raising ceremony, where he celebrated but also urged political change in Cuba, telling its citizens they should have the freedom to select their leaders. In front of hundreds of people gathered outside the embassy building, Kerry added that despite the historic re-opening of ties, America will continue pushing for democratic and political reform.
“We will continue to urge the Cuban government to fulfill its obligations under UN And Inter-American human rights covenants – obligations shared by the United States and every other country in the Americas,” he said.
Kerry also offered praise for the leaders of both countries for working to fix the relationship between the two nations.
“I applaud [US] President [Barack] Obama and [Cuban] President [Raul] Castro for having the courage to bring us together in the face of considerable opposition,” he said.
“My friends, it doesn’t take a GPS to realize that the road of mutual isolation and estrangement in the United States and Cuba were traveling is not the right one and that the time has come for us to move in a more promising direction,” Kerry added. “In the United States, that means recognizing that US policy is not the anvil on which Cuba’s future will be forged.”
The re-opening of embassies is a crucial step in normalizing relations and economic ties between the countries following decades of Cold War hostilities, NBC News reported. The United States cut ties with Cuba in 1961.
Friday’s celebration followed Cuba’s flag-raising event in Washington on July 20 when Cuban officials inaugurated their embassy. The United States waited until Kerry could travel to Havana.
During the event, the U.S. flag was handed over by three men who, more than 50 years ago, took it down as young marines.
Despite the significant step, Kerry acknowledged that obstacles remain in the process.
“We are all aware that, notwithstanding President Obama’s new policy, the overall U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba remains in place and can only be lifted by Congressional action – a step we strongly favor,” he said.
Obama’s efforts to thaw relations with Cuba – including the use of his executive power to soften certain U.S. travel and trade restrictions – have also been met with backlash from U.S. lawmakers, including some Republican presidential candidates.
“The deal with Cuba threatens America’s moral standing in our hemisphere and around the world, it brings legitimacy to a state sponsor of terror, and further empowers an ally of China and Russia that sits just 90 miles from our shore,” said Cuban-American Sen. Mark Rubio (R-Florida) during a speech at the Foreign Policy Initiative in New York City on Friday, NBC News reported.
Kerry was scheduled to meet later on Friday with Cubans opposed to the developments who were not invited to the flag-raising, avoiding tensions with Cuban officials who usually boycott events that the country’s small political opposition attends. This elicited complaints from dissidents who say Cuba’s government hasn’t made any concessions in exchange for diplomatic ties, Reuters reported.
“The accommodation of the Castro regime comes at the expense of the freedom and democracy that all Cubans deserve, but Secretary Kerry’s visit is especially insulting for Cuba’s dissidents,” Republican presidential candidate and former Florida governor Jeb Bush said in a statement. “That courageous Cubans whose only crime is to speak out for freedom and democracy will be kept away from the official ceremony opening the US Embassy is yet another concession to the Castros.”
The State Department, however, said it invited dissidents to a separate flag-raising in the afternoon at the residence of the embassy’s chief of mission, Al Jazeera reported.
Obama and Castro announced last December that they were moving to normalize diplomatic relations, seeking to end decades of hostility. (With reports from Al Jazeera, BBC, NBC News and Reuters)
