One of the last Cold War-era battles officially came to an end on Monday morning in Washington at 10:30 local time, when the flag above the newly re-opened Cuban Embassy was raised for the first time since 1961.
The honor guard ceremony marking the start of normalized relations between the United States and Cuba was greeted by demonstrations–both celebratory and critical–and a media circus that outnumbered both factions on an otherwise quiet part of 16th Street Northwest.
Cries of “Cuba Si! Castro No!” were answered with calls of “Cuba Si! Bloqueo No!” and “Viva Fidel,” with both sides now facing a paradigm unthinkable before last December, when President Obama revealed that there had been a detente between Washington and Havana.
At the watershed inauguration, there didn’t appear to be many voices critical of the new policy itself, although one demonstrator did rush the gates of the embassy before being apprehended by the usual array of city and federal police officers who keep watchful eyes on demonstrations in DC. One critic of the Cuban government, who had been chanting “derechos humanos para todos” among other slogans told The Sentinel that he thought President Obama’s policy was “positive.” The problem, he said, isn’t the two states talking, but rather Havana’s insistence on refusing a dialogue with dissenting voices.
Polls released in the past few months have revealed that feelings in the US about Cuba’s single party state are no longer strong enough to stop engagement. The majority of Americans, including Republicans and Cuban-Americans, support the restoration of diplomatic relations.
Corporate America, too, has welcomed the new approach to relations, with agribusiness leading the charge in Congress to end the embargo.
On hand Monday, touting this angle were members of a human rights organization—the Washington Office on Latin America—promoting newly-drafted legislation that they say would “create new opportunities for US telecommunications” and “offer services in Cuba to build a 21st century digital infrastructure.”
The bill, the Cuba Digital and Telecommunications Advancement Act (DATA), was co-introduced in the House last week by Reps. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) to end export restrictions and limits on commercial activity between US citizens and their Cuban counterparts. The senate is also deliberating companion legislation introduced by Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.).
“Not only would our telecommunications companies have the opportunity to upgrade Cuba’s infrastructure, but our farmers and entrepreneurs would be able to conduct business in Cuba utilizing 21st century communications methods,” Rep. Cramer said Monday, in the press release being distributed in front of the embassy, by WOLA.
The group’s program director, Geoff Thale, commented in the release that “expanding internet access and telecommunications services will give Cuban citizens more access to information and more economic opportunities.”
The block of 16th Street that the Cuban Embassy is home to—between Fuller and Euclid Streets–has other minor significance in the history of the Cold War. The Lithuanian Embassy is adjacent to the Cuban outpost, and signs put up by the DC government outside of it commemorate it as the site of celebrations after the fall of the Soviet Union, in addition to noting that the Baltic State’s newfound independence meant its basketball team was able to compete in the 1992 Olympics–courtesy of a donation from The Grateful Dead.
