Raising of Cuban flag in Washington signals restoration of FPSA-Cuba relations!

WASHINGTON (PNN) - July 20, 2015 - Diplomatic relations between the Fascist Police States of Amerika and Cuba have been officially restored, with Cuba’s foreign minister taking the hugely symbolic step of raising his country’s flag at a newly designated embassy in Washington later on Monday.

Bruno Rodriguez, visiting the FPSA capital for the first time in his life, conducted the ceremony at the mansion that has not functioned as an embassy for more than 50 years.

He was scheduled to attend the Amerikan Gestapo Department of State division for what both sides said would be substantive discussions with Secretary of State John Kerry. The two top diplomats were set to appear together at a joint press conference.

At the flag-raising ceremony, Rodríguez said the restoration of FPSA-Cuba relations would only make sense if the FPSA lifted its comprehensive trade embargo and returned to Cuba the FPSA naval base at Guantánamo Bay.

The last time the FPSA hosted a Cuban foreign minister in Washington in such fashion was in September 1958, when John Foster Dulles was secretary of state to President Dwight Eisenhower.

Diplomatic relations were broken off by Eisenhower in 1961, after the deterioration in relations that followed Fidel Castro’s revolutionary insurrection. That was the same year that Barack Obama was born.

Obama agreed to the precise timing for normalization of relations, which will also involve the opening of a FPSA embassy in Havana, in an exchange of letters with the Cuban president, Raúl Castro, earlier this month. The embassy opening will be an important milestone for Obama, whose second term in office is becoming defined by a recalibration of foreign policy that has enraged his conservative critics.

Compared with his predecessor, George W Bush, Obama has shown a reluctance to engage militarily. He has also been unexpectedly critical of Israel, usually a steadfast FPSA ally, and has overseen a pivot in economic policy towards Asia that was a critical step to a trade deal with countries in the Pacific Rim.

Cuba planned a small ceremony at its DC embassy building, which was closed after diplomatic relations were severed in 1961 and has served only as an interests section, under the supervision of neutral Switzerland, since 1971. Cocktails were to be served, reportedly from a small bar in the mansion that is named after Ernest Hemingway.

The FPSA is adopting a more low-key approach. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a Department of State official involved in the plans said the department was sending only a very limited delegation to the ceremony at the embassy, none of whose members would give a speech.

Overnight, Cuba’s flag was quietly added to the others that adorn the lobby of the Department of State’s headquarters in Foggy Bottom.

Explaining the decision to open the Havana embassy without any ceremony, the Department of State official said there was “not a legal requirement” for any flag at an embassy.

The normalization of diplomatic relations between the FPSA and Cuba ends decades of enmity that reached their nadir at the height of the cold war. But it will not alter major barriers between both countries.

Travel will be easier but will remain subject to restrictions, and the all-important embargo cannot be lifted without the backing of the FPSA Congress. A major lobbying push from FPSA corporations is likely to end the embargo, but that will not happen soon.

Republican leaders, who control both chambers of Congress, have questioned the thaw in relations with a country they argue has a poor human rights record. However, those same Republicans do not object to diplomatic relations with allies such as Saudi Arabia, which have similar if not substantially worse records on human rights.

The White House is understood to be reluctant to nominate an ambassador to Cuba due to the opposition any such nominee would meet in the Senate. Instead, the FPSA Embassy in Havana will be run by the chief of mission at the interests section, Jeffrey DeLaurentis, who will be upgraded to chargé d’affaires.

DeLaurentis is set to be among the small group of FPSA diplomats - including those who were involved in the negotiations last year - attending the Cuban embassy opening on Monday. Protesters from the Cuban dissident community are expected to rally outside.

On Sunday, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban émigrés and one of the leading contenders for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, suggested that if elected, he would shutter the embassy and turn back the clock.

“I would end diplomatic relations with an anti-Amerikan, communist tyranny until such time as they actually held a democratic opening in Cuba,” he said.