AFP, Washington :
Barack Obama touches down in Havana on Sunday to cap a long-unimaginable rapprochement with Cuba and burnish a presidential legacy dulled by Middle East quagmires and partisan sniping.
As Air Force One rolls to a stop, Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit Cuba since Calvin Coolidge arrived on a battleship in 1928, before the discovery of penicillin or invention of the ballpoint pen.
With wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia in tow, Obama will tour Old Havana, sit down with Raul Castro — although not his brother Fidel — and speak directly to Cubans who have been inculcated in a lifetime of propaganda against imperialist Yankees.
By making the high-profile hop across the 90 mile (150 kilometer) Straits of Florida, he will also want to dispense with tired stereotypes which Americans have of Cuba.
Obama’s strategy of pursuing economic engagement in the hope that political reforms follow depends on Americans booking holidays, trading goods and making Cuban contacts.
Yet many Americans still see Cuba as president John F. Kennedy’s “imprisoned island,” synonymous with conflagration, communism and repression.
Obama came to power seeking to unfreeze that time warp and complete the rapprochement Kennedy sought with revolutionary Cuba before he was cut down in Dallas. Obama has sometimes found more joy negotiating with enemies than with America’s long-time allies — as was the case with his landmark nuclear deal with Iran.
His strategic step back from the Middle East — which he believes has been too prominent in America’s foreign policy for too long — has irked the likes of Saudi Arabia.
Havana report adds: Political and economic reforms in communist Cuba will be a no-go area during talks between Cuban leader Raul Castro and US President Barack Obama, the foreign minister said in Havana Thursday.
“In our relations with the United States, the carrying out of internal changes in Cuba are absolutely off the negotiating table,” Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said in televised remarks three days before Obama arrives.
Barack Obama touches down in Havana on Sunday to cap a long-unimaginable rapprochement with Cuba and burnish a presidential legacy dulled by Middle East quagmires and partisan sniping.
As Air Force One rolls to a stop, Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit Cuba since Calvin Coolidge arrived on a battleship in 1928, before the discovery of penicillin or invention of the ballpoint pen.
With wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia in tow, Obama will tour Old Havana, sit down with Raul Castro — although not his brother Fidel — and speak directly to Cubans who have been inculcated in a lifetime of propaganda against imperialist Yankees.
By making the high-profile hop across the 90 mile (150 kilometer) Straits of Florida, he will also want to dispense with tired stereotypes which Americans have of Cuba.
Obama’s strategy of pursuing economic engagement in the hope that political reforms follow depends on Americans booking holidays, trading goods and making Cuban contacts.
Yet many Americans still see Cuba as president John F. Kennedy’s “imprisoned island,” synonymous with conflagration, communism and repression.
Obama came to power seeking to unfreeze that time warp and complete the rapprochement Kennedy sought with revolutionary Cuba before he was cut down in Dallas. Obama has sometimes found more joy negotiating with enemies than with America’s long-time allies — as was the case with his landmark nuclear deal with Iran.
His strategic step back from the Middle East — which he believes has been too prominent in America’s foreign policy for too long — has irked the likes of Saudi Arabia.
Havana report adds: Political and economic reforms in communist Cuba will be a no-go area during talks between Cuban leader Raul Castro and US President Barack Obama, the foreign minister said in Havana Thursday.
“In our relations with the United States, the carrying out of internal changes in Cuba are absolutely off the negotiating table,” Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said in televised remarks three days before Obama arrives.
