Two views
“Sometimes a handshake is just a handshake. But when the leader of the free world shakes the bloody hand of a ruthless dictator like Raul Castro, it becomes a propaganda coup for the tyrant.”
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Cuban-American congresswoman from Florida who until January 2013 was chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
“On the one hand you shouldn’t make too much of this. Relations between Cuba and the United States are not changing tomorrow because they shook hands. … What’s really striking here is the contrast. It’s a modestly hopeful sign, and it builds on the small steps that they’re taking.”
Geoff Thale
a Cuba analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a U.S.-based think tank
It was the briefest of moments, just seconds, two presidents shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries amid a gaggle of world leaders together to honor the late Nelson Mandela.
It would hardly have been noteworthy, except the men locking hands in Johannesburg were Barack Obama and Raul Castro, whose nations have been mired in Cold War antagonism for more than five decades.
A single, cordial gesture is unlikely to wash away bad blood dating back to the Eisenhower administration. But in a year that has seen both sides take small steps at improving the relationship, the handshake stoked talk of further rapprochement.
Obama and Castro’s encounter is the first of its kind between sitting U.S. and Cuban presidents since Bill Clinton and Fidel shook hands at the U.N. in 2000.
It came as Obama greeted a line of world leaders on his way to the podium for a speech at the memorial.
Obama also had a cheek-kiss for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. The two have clashed over reports the National Security Agency monitored her communications, leading the Brazilian leader to shelve a state trip to the U.S. earlier this year.
In another potentially uneasy exchange, Obama briefly greeted Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose refusal to sign a security agreement with the U.S. before year’s end has irritated the administration.
Obama adviser Ben Rhodes said the handshakes were not planned in advance and didn’t involve any substantive discussion. “The president didn’t see this as a venue to do business,” he told reporters traveling back to Washington aboard Air Force One.
By shaking Castro’s hand, Obama sent a message of openness that echoes a speech he gave at a Democratic fundraiser in Miami last month.
“We have to continue to update our policies,” he said then. “Keep in mind that when (Fidel) Castro came to power, I was just born. So the notion that the same policies that we put in place in 1961 would somehow still be as effective as they are today in the age of the Internet and Google and world travel doesn’t make sense.”
As president, Obama has lifted limits on how often Cuban-Americans can visit family back on the island, and how much they can send home in remittances. He also reinstated “people-to-people” cultural exchange tours to Cuba. The result is more than a half-million U.S. visitors to the island each year.
Cultural, sports and academic exchanges have become commonplace. Just Monday, a huge ship docked in Havana carrying hundreds of Semester at Sea students under a U.S. government license.
But Obama has also argued that Washington’s 51-year economic embargo on Cuba should remain in force, and his administration has imposed tens of millions of dollars in fines on international companies for violating the sanctions.
Cuban state television broadcast images of Tuesday’s historic handshake, as well as a snippet of Obama’s speech. It did not, however, include his implicit criticism of governments like Havana’s: “There are too many who claim solidarity with (Mandela’s) struggle for freedom but do not tolerate dissent from their own people,” Obama said.
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