This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/11/world/americas/cuba-us-obama-castro-terrorism.html

The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 2 Version 3
Obama and Cuba’s Raúl Castro Will Meet at Summit Obama and Cuba’s Raúl Castro Will Meet at Summit
(about 4 hours later)
PANAMA CITY, Panama — President Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba will meet during a summit of hemisphere leaders this weekend, American officials said Friday, in their first encounter since Mr. Obama announced that he would seek to normalize relations with the country. PANAMA CITY, Panama — President Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba are to meet here on Saturday during a gathering of regional leaders, American officials said Friday, in the first full-fledged, face-to-face conversation between presidents of the United States and Cuba in more than a half-century.
“We certainly anticipate that they will have a discussion,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser. The expected encounter was not on Mr. Obama’s official schedule, but it held deep significance for the regional meeting, as the president’s move to ease tensions with Cuba has overshadowed the official agenda.
Mr. Obama is nearing a decision on removing Cuba’s three-decade-old designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, citing progress in his push to re-establish diplomatic ties after half a century of hostilities. Mr. Obama is nearing a decision on removing Cuba’s three-decade-old designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, citing progress in the effort to re-establish diplomatic ties after half a century of hostilities.
On the eve of the gathering, Mr. Obama said the State Department had completed a review that he had ordered of Cuba’s status on the list of states that sponsor terrorism. He spoke by telephone with Mr. Castro before the gathering, and on Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry met with Bruno Rodríguez, the Cuban foreign minister — the highest-level session between the governments in more than 50 years — to lay the groundwork for the advancing reconciliation.
“Our emphasis has been on the facts,” Mr. Obama said earlier on Thursday in Kingston, Jamaica, where he met with Caribbean leaders on energy and security cooperation and started a young leaders initiative. “We want to make sure that given that this is a powerful tool to isolate those countries that genuinely do support terrorism, that when we make those designations we’ve got strong evidence that, in fact, that’s the case.” “As we move toward the process of normalization, we’ll have our differences government-to-government with Cuba on many issues, just as we differ at times with other nations within the Americas,” Mr. Obama said at a civil society forum before the official start of the summit meeting. “There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’m here to say that when we do speak out, we’re going to do so because the United States of America does believe, and will always stand for, a certain set of universal values.”
“As circumstances change, then that list will change as well,” he said, adding that he would not make a formal announcement until he had received a final recommendation from his advisers. The president rushed through a packed schedule on Friday as the summit meeting got underway, beginning his day with a tour of the Panama Canal. “The Panama Canal is a testament to human ingenuity and vision,” he scrawled in the guest book.
In a sign of progress in the thaw between Cuba and the United States, Secretary of State John Kerry met here on Thursday night with Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez. It was the highest-level session between representatives of the two governments in more than 50 years. At a forum with chief executives Mr. Obama promoted a $1 billion investment package he has proposed for Central America in an effort to address the causes of the surge of immigrants across America’s southern border last summer. “The more we see our economies as mutually dependent rather than a zero-sum game, I think the more successful all of us will be,” he said.
Mr. Obama’s comments left open the possibility that he could announce the move at the Summit of the Americas opening here on Friday, where he hopes to highlight momentum in the diplomatic progress with Cuba. As he prepared to sit down with Mr. Castro, the president made it clear that he still had human rights concerns and was determined to discuss them openly. He held a lengthy meeting with civil society leaders from 12 other countries, including two from Cuba, after a speech at the forum in which he referred to the American civil rights and gay rights movements and people who opposed apartheid in South Africa and Communism in the Soviet Union.
At the meeting, the interactions between Mr. Obama and Mr. Castro will be scrutinized for their symbolic significance. Mr. Obama and Mr. Castro have already spoken by phone this week. “Civil society is the conscience of our countries,” he said.
Cuba is attending the summit meeting for the first time since its inception in 1994, creating the first publicly planned encounter of the American and Cuban presidents since 1958, though Mr. Obama and Mr. Castro shook hands at Nelson Mandela’s funeral in South Africa in December 2013, and President Bill Clinton and Fidel Castro shook hands and chatted briefly at a United Nations meeting in 2000. Cuba is attending the Summit of the Americas for the first time since its inception in 1994. As Cuban and American officials spoke at the highest levels, people representing pro- and anti-Cuban government groups mixed it up for the third straight day on the sidelines, drawing a contrast with the diplomatic warming.
As Mr. Obama basked in the balmy Jamaican temperatures and the adulation of Caribbean leaders and young people visibly thrilled to welcome him, he cast his decision to seek normal relations with Cuba as a way of reordering relationships in the hemisphere and pushing forward on a season of outreach over antagonism. Hours before Mr. Obama arrived to address the civil society forum at a Panama City hotel, members of groups sent by the Cuban government tried to block access to dissidents, calling them mercenaries who did not speak for Cuba.
“We will continue to have differences with the Cuban government, but we don’t want to be imprisoned by the past,” Mr. Obama told young leaders in a town hall meeting at the University of the West Indies. “Engagement is a more powerful force than isolation. I believe that we can move past some of the old debates that so often define the region, and move forward.” At one point, amid angry chanting at one another, one of Cuba’s best-known government opponents, Guillermo Farinas, was jostled and manhandled as he tried to make his way through a thick crowd of pro-Castro demonstrators.
The president appeared energized by his Jamaican visit, which included a tour of a museum dedicated to the reggae legend Bob Marley — which he later called “one of the more fun meetings that I’ve had since I’ve been president” — and a lengthy question-and-answer session with young people to kick off a $70 million youth initiative his administration is starting in the region. “These aren’t really dissidents, they aren’t really interested in democracy and human rights,” Patricia Flechilla, a Cuban student and delegate at the summit, told reporters, going on to repeat a familiar complaint from the Cuban government that opponents are paid and propped up by foreign governments, namely the United States.
“Greetings, massive,” he told the 350 attendees, using local vernacular and getting loud cheers in return. “I just like the vibe here,” the president added. The fracas interrupted the work of the forum, made up of nongovernmental groups from across the hemisphere, to produce a statement directed at the heads of state gathered at the summit meeting.
Leaders of the Caribbean countries returned the sentiment in strikingly personal terms. Later, before Mr. Obama arrived, scores of people waving Cuban flags and chanting “Long Live Fidel, Long Live Raúl” gathered outside the hotel.
Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller of Jamaica, who exchanged hugs throughout the day with Mr. Obama as they cycled through official events, said he was “very loved” by Jamaicans. Santiago Canton, executive director of RFK Partners for Human Rights at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, said the presence of Cuba at the summit meeting would inevitably lead to discord that only highlighted the lack of democracy and human rights on the island. “People were sent by the Cuban government to disrupt everything going on, and they are doing that well,” he said after observing the clash. “Human rights and democracy are weak points on the Cuban side.”
“You’re on the right side of history,” Ms. Simpson Miller told the president of his effort to establish normal relations with Cuba, calling it “a bold and courageous move.” Representatives of the Cuban delegation said they would withdraw from the civil society forum rather than “share space with mercenaries paid from the outside for the purpose of subverting the political and social system of our country.”
In Panama, a fistfight broke out on Thursday between dissident groups and supporters of the Cuban government. The melee began after members of the dissident groups attempted to lay flowers at a monument to José Martí, a Cuban nationalist hero.
Mr. Obama is also likely to face other strains at the gathering here. President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has vowed to use the summit meeting to rail against the United States.