Cuba and the United States : Honeymoon cancelled

hopes that Mr Obama and his Cuban counterpart, Raúl Castro, would end a 50-year freeze in relations between their countries have proved wildly premature.

The latest round of talks took place in late February. They were overshadowed by familiar rows. The American officials demanded the release of Alan Gross, who was working under contract to USAID and was arrested in Havana in December. His family says he was helping Jewish groups in Cuba ...

Four days after the talks Orlando Zapata, an imprisoned dissident, died in custody in a Havana hospital after an 85-day hunger strike in protest at his treatment in jail. That prompted an outcry from international human-rights groups. Hundreds of police prevented all but a few dissidents from attending his funeral in his home town in eastern Cuba.

When Raúl Castro announced Mr Gross’s arrest he said it proved that the Obama administration was out to topple the government and was no different from its predecessors. The honeymoon is over before it began.

Fidel Castro meets with 3 visiting US lawmakers
By WILL WEISSERT
April 7, 2009

HAVANA – Signaling its willingness to discuss improved relations with the Obama administration, Cuba on Tuesday granted three visiting members of the Congressional Black Caucus the first meeting with Fidel Castro by American officials since he fell ill in 2006.

[snip]

"Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., current head of the 42-member caucus, said at a news conference in Washington after the group's return that lawmakers met for nearly two hours with Fidel Castro and found him 'very healthy, very energetic, very clear thinking.'

Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Calif., who also met Fidel with Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., said Castro 'looked directly into our eyes' and asked how Cuba could help Obama in his efforts to change the course of U.S. foreign policy. Richardson said she had the impression that 82-year-old Fidel wants to see changes in U.S.-Cuba relations in his lifetime.

Raul Castro, added Lee, 'said everything was on the table.' ..."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/08/fidel-castro-meets-us-lawmakers-33830710/print/

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