Cubans hope for a better future
Bells tolled in celebration and teachers halted lessons midday.
People cheer for the ‘Cuban Five’ while holding a poster of the five Cuban agents in Havana Wednesday.
Cubans cheered the surprise announcement that their country will restore relations with the United States, hopeful they’ll soon see expanded trade and new economic vibrancy even though the 53-year-old economic embargo remains in place for the time being.
“This opens a better future for us,” said Milagros Diaz, 34. “We have really needed something like this because the situation has been bad and the people have been very discouraged.”
Bells tolled in celebration and teachers halted lessons midday as President Raul Castro told his country Wednesday that Cuba would renew relations with Washington after more than a half-century of hostility.
Wearing his military uniform with its five-star insignia, the 83-year-old leader said the two countries would work to resolve their differences “without renouncing a single one of our principles”.
Alan Gross celebrates onboard a government plane headed back to the US in this White House handout photo.
Havana residents gathered around television sets in homes, schools and businesses to hear the historic national broadcast, which coincided with a statement by US President Barack Obama in Washington. Uniformed schoolchildren burst into applause at the news.
At the University of San Geronimo in the capital’s historic centre, the announcement drew ringing from the bell tower. Throughout the capital, there was a sense of euphoria as word spread.
“For the Cuban people, I think this is like a shot of oxygen, a wish-come-true, because with this, we have overcome our differences,” said Carlos Gonzalez, a 32-year-old IT specialist. “It is an advance that will open the road to a better future for the two countries.”
Fidel and Raul Castro led the 1959 rebellion that toppled the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The US initially recognized the new government but broke relations in 1961 after Cuba veered sharply to the left and nationalized US-owned businesses.
In his address, Castro called on US to end its trade embargo which, he said, “has caused enormous human and economic damage”.
Ramon Roman, 62, said he hoped to see Cuba welcome more tourists. “It would be a tremendous economic injection, both in terms of money and in new energy and would be a boost for average people who need it,” he said.
Victoria Serrano, a lab worker, said she hoped to see an influx of new goods because life in Cuba has been “really very difficult”. “In particular,” she said, “I hope we’ll see an improvement in food – that there is trade in this with the US, which is so close. Right now, even an onion has become a luxury.”
Around the cathedral in Old Havana, people gathered in doorways and on sidewalks, gesturing excitedly as they discussed the news.
Leading the global praise, Pope Francis sent “warm congratulations” to US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro for overcoming “the difficulties which have marked their recent history”.
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