Charles in historic Cuba visit
Prince, Camilla in Havana on first-ever trip by British royal
HAVANA: Prince Charles and his wife Camilla landed in Havana for the first official trip by the British royal family to Communist-run Cuba even as Britain’s top ally the United States seeks to isolate the island nation.
Shortly after arriving on a Royal Air Force plane on Sunday, the heir to the British throne laid a wreath of flowers at the memorial to independence hero Jose Marti on Havana’s Revolution Square dominated by portraits of guerrilla fighters including Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
During his three-day historic visit, which is part of a broader Caribbean tour, the 70-year-old Prince of Wales is set to dine with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, tour Havana’s restored colonial district, visit community and green energy projects and review a parade of antique British cars.
The royal visit, in line with a broader normalisation in relations between the West and Cuba, comes three years after one by former US President Barack Obama then billed as the start of a new chapter for ties between the old Cold War foes
Since Donald Trump became US president, however, the United States has reverted to its old strategy of seeking to pressure Cuba to change, including tightening its crippling trade embargo on the island.
The Trump administration has ramped up pressure over the crisis in Cuba’s socialist ally Venezuela.
“It’s good for Cuba to strengthen its relations with key international actors but all the more so when the United States has a president responding to the interests of rightwing people who want to hurt Cuba,” said one Havana resident, Arian Rubio, 26, a historian.
William LeoGrande, a professor of government at American University, said such visits by high-level delegations “lend legitimacy to the Cuban government and represent an implicit warning to the United States that hostile actions against Cuba may incur a diplomatic cost with important allies”. — Reuters