Posted on 03/20/2016 12:18:02 PM PDT by Kaslin
Havana/Washington (dpa) - US President Barack Obama departed Washington Sunday for a three-day visit to Cuba, a historic trip culminating a process of a rapprochement that began more than a year ago.
Obama and his family, including first lady Michelle Obama and her mother, Marian Robinson, boarded Air Force One around 1:30 pm (1730 GMT) at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington and the plane took off in a light drizzle.
The only other sitting US president who has ever visited Cuba, Calvin Coolidge, travelled there by ship in 1928.
Obama is expected to be feted during his stay on the Caribbean island nation. But he also will witness a city lined with buildings in an ill state of repair in Havana and streets full of ancient cars.
Decades of hostility between neighbours on opposite sides of the political spectrum began to dissipate after Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro agreed in December 2014 to end what effectively had become a stalemate in relations dating back to the dawn of the Cold War.
Diplomatic ties were restored in July, and little by little other hindrances to cooperation have been dropped. Last week the United States loosened some travel restrictions on Cuba, including allowing US citizens to visit the country for "people-to-people" educational trips, and eased restrictions on banking services.
Direct postal service also recently restarted, eliminating the need for letters and parcels to be sent via third countries.
Obama's stay will last through Tuesday, and will include a meeting with Raul Castro, but not with his older brother, Fidel, the 89-year-old revolutionary, who ruled the communist island for decades after the revolution and consistently express hostility toward the US, which implemented an embargo against Cuba in 1961.
Raul Castro has called for the complete lifting of a trade embargo and a return of Guantanamo Bay, a US military base on the eastern tip of Cuba under US control since 1903.
While Obama has signalled that the days of mutual hostility are over, he also plans to press Cuba on the critical human rights situation in the country, which remains a major sticking point in bilateral relations.
In recent days there have been hundreds of short-term detentions of opposition activists, the type that Cuban authorities tend to use to prevent them from disrupting specific events.
For his part, Fidel Castro sent his own message on Sunday when a photo of him speaking with Venezuelan socialist President Nicolas Maduro was published on the cover of the newspaper Juventud Rebelde. He has previously expressed scepticism over the approach his brother has taken toward the US.
Fixed.
He should take his HOPE AND CHANGE message to them. It is working well in Chicago and Detroit.
So will this be a big live event all channels playing it and make it a huge deal
Yes, we would be very fortunate if it was a one way trip.
He’s handing over the door keys to Gitmo too. It will be a ready made turnkey Naval base for Russia, or China, or the Norks, or Iran. Just insert an enemy’s name.
What ever this living disease is up to its NO GOOD.
Gitmo? Nope, we still need a coaling station there.
I sure wouldn’t miss him
Well,,we could always blow it up before we left.
The mother in law went too.
Trading it will cancel out some of the carbon footprint we generated with coal powered ships which is part of the gravest transgression - environmental crimes.
Zer0 wants to bring us the wonderful Cuban health care and their wonderful freedom.
An unscheduled low yield nuclear test. Poison the well.
Maybe Castro will show Obama how dissidents can be tortured and executed just to make him jealous.
Oh, well of course. We could put in wind mills. Or cover the area in mirrors.
This could someday be a good thing if our rep was an American and not an (Islamonazi) commie.
We could slip some isotopes out of NORK, use that, and then blame it on them.
Good idea.
hope he flys thru bermuda triangle. Onboard video shows obama vanishes in an instant - an act of supernatural forces. Rest of crew unharmed and video proves their innocence.
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