AS the strains of the ”Star-Spangled Banner” faded in the wind at Havana’s international airport, President Fidel Castro turned to his visitor and said, ”It’s been a long time since that happened.”
Jimmy Carter, the former US president who did more than any other to ease tensions with Cuba, arrived for a visit on Sunday – the first time a US head of state, in or out of office, has come to the communist island since Castro’s 1959 revolution.
While both men spoke of desires to improve relations between their nations, Carter’s visit occurs at the latest in many moments of tension between their governments: allegations last week by US Undersecretary of State John Bolton that Cuba was trying to develop biological weapons.
Castro ridiculed that accusation in a speech on Friday. On Carter’s arrival, he promised the former US president ? educated long ago in nuclear physics – to ”complete access” to any Cuban biotechnology laboratory.
On Monday, Carter was scheduled to visit one the main such labs, the Centre of Generic Engineering and Biotechnology on the outskirts of Havana.
Castro, dressed in a dark business suit, hosted Carter and his delegation at talks and a dinner in the Palace of the Revolution on Sunday night.
The visit gave the Cuban leader an unusually high-profile chance to reach out to Americans, and he used it by symbolically throwing open the doors of the island to the former American head of state.
He nodded his head in agreement when Carter asked if a speech on Tuesday would be broadcast live. And Castro said, ”You can express yourself freely whether or not we agree with part of what you say or with everything you say. You will have free access to every place you want to go.”
”We shall not take offence at any contact you may wish to make,” an obvious reference to the dissident and human rights activists Carter plans to visit during his visit.
Cuban officials have been irritated with some other foreign leaders who have held similar meetings, but Castro said Carter had proved his sincerity in the past: ”A man who, in the middle of the Cold War and from the depth of an ocean of prejudice, misinformation and distrust … dared to try to improve relations between both countries deserves respect.”
Speaking in Spanish, Carter said he hoped ”to discuss ideals that (his wife) Rosalynn and I hold dear … peace, human rights, democracy and the alleviation of suffering.”
He said there were ”differences on some of these issues” with Cuban leaders, ”but we welcome the opportunity to try to identify some points in common and some areas of cooperation.”
After the arrival ceremony, Castro gave the Carters a taste of the sort of honours visiting heads of state received in the era of Carter’s presidency from 1977 to 1981: He joined the Carters in the back of a black, Soviet-made Zil limousine donated to Cuba by then-Soviet leader Leonid I Brezhnev in the mid-1970s. It is used only for the most distinguished of guests.
Carter, the first former or sitting US president to visit Cuba since Calvin Coolidge came in 1928, has emphasized this is a private visit and that he will not be negotiating with the Cuban government.
Castro has been Cuba’s head of state during the administrations of 10 American presidents. With none were relations less hostile than with Carter’s.
As president from 1977-81, Carter oversaw the re-establishment of diplomatic exchanges between the two countries and negotiated the release of thousands of political prisoners. He also made it possible for Cuban exiles to visit relatives on the island and, for a short time, for other Americans to travel here freely.
But relations have remained chilly. A US trade embargo is still in place and visits by Americans are tightly limited, or are supposed to be: tens of thousands skirt or ignore the travel ban each year.
”Jimmy Carter! You are one of our best presidents! I love you!” yelled Elaine George of Benicia, California, as Carter walked past the lobby window of her hotel during a tour of Havana’s historic district.
”I’m not supposed to be here,” George said. ”Don’t tell my mother!” – Sapa-AP