US Embassy Opens in Cuba after 54 Years

The U.S. embassy in Havana has been reopened after over 54 years.

“We are gathered here because our leaders made a courageous decision to stop being prisoners of history”, Kerry told a crowd at the embassy, mixing Spanish into his remarks.

“I think we’re ending one phase and entering another”, said Robert Muse, a U.S. lawyer specializing in Cuba.

Democrats seem to be the most on board with renewed U.S.-Cuba relations, with 83 percent in support compared with 56 percent of Republicans.

However, Kerry said not to expect changes overnight.

At their news conference later, Rodriguez said Havana also had concern about human rights in the United States.

Secretary of State John Kerry clapping during the raising of the US flag over the newly-reopened embassy in Havana yesterday.

Invitees from both countries and a U.S. delegation made up of some 20 officials and lawmakers attended the initial event, which did not include any Cuban dissidents.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) extends its congratulations to the United States of America and to our sister Caribbean nation Cuba, as they continue on the path towards their normalisation of relations.

The symbolic moment served as a picture-perfect coda to eight months of rapid change since the December 17 rapprochement announcement by US President Barack Obama and Cuban counterpart Raul Castro, which paved the way for the two countries to reopen their embassies on July 20.

Since then, Obama has eased restrictions on travel and trade, believing engagement with Cuba will do more to encourage personal freedoms on the island than Cold War-era rhetoric and a economic embargo.

“The United States has had 10 new presidents, and in a united Germany the Berlin Wall is a fading memory, freed from Soviet shackles”, he said.

Today we are taking a historic step – and I would add that it should have happened much earlier – in the right direction and we are determined to move forward, said Mr Kerry.

Kerry said that human rights would be “at the top of our agenda” in discussions Friday with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.

Thale says the opening of the U.S. embassy in Cuba is a nice gesture – “kind of like popping the cork of the champagne right after the contract has been signed”.

In the past, he conceded, United States policies had not led to democracy.

Despite the detente, normalization of relations remains a distant goal.

Kerry was the first secretary of state to visit since 1945, and his speech was remarkable for its bluntness and the national spotlight in which it came.

He and another candidate Marco Rudio, a Cuban-American senator from Florida, also criticised the Secretary of State for not inviting Cuban dissidents to the ceremony.

Felix Lopez, a locksmith from Havana, leaned on the security gate outside the embassy to get a view of the ceremony.