Havana – Watched over by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, U.S. Marines raised the American flag at the embassy in Cuba for the first time in 54 years yesterday , symbolically ushering in an era of renewed diplomatic relations between the two Cold War-era foes.
Three retired Marines who last lowered the flag in 1961 participated in the ceremony, handing a new flag to the Marine Colour Guard, which raised it on the grounds outside the embassy building on the Havana seafront.
Kerry, the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Cuba in 70 years, said at the event that it was obvious that “the road of mutual isolation and estrangement that the United States and Cuba have been travelling is not the right one and that the time has come for us to move in a more promising direction.”
The symbolic event took place eight months after Havana and Washington agreed to restore ties and nearly four weeks after the United States and Cuba formally renewed diplomatic relations and upgraded their diplomatic missions to embassies.
While the Cubans celebrated with a flag-raising in Washington on July 20, the Americans waited until Kerry could travel to Havana.
Kerry made declared that despite the historic opening, Washington has not set aside criticism of Communist-run Cuba’s human rights record.
“We remain convinced the people of Cuba would be best served by a genuine democracy, where people are free to choose their leaders,” he said.
Kerry was billed to meet Cuban dissidents opposed to the island’s one-party political system at the U.S. embassy residence in Havana last night.
But dissidents were not invited to the morning flag-raising in deference to the Cuban government, generating criticism from opponents of U.S. President Barack Obama’s opening to Cuba.
Critics of Obama’s move, which seeks to end decades of U.S. isolation and was announced last December in a landmark agreement with Cuban President Raul Castro, complain the Cuban government has made no concessions in exchange for diplomatic ties.
“It is shameful that on the grounds of our embassy in Havana, the Cuban regime can dictate to the United States government who may or may not attend this ceremony,” Bob Menendez, a Cuban-American senator from New Jersey, said in a statement.
Overnight, workers attached a sign reading “Embassy of the United States of America” above the entrance of the building, accompanied by a U.S. seal.
Three classic American cars like those that still ply the streets of Havana were parked on the street behind the podium where Kerry spoke: a 1955 and a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air and a 1959 Chevrolet Impala, from the year of the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power.
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