Cuba Says It Won't Alter `Revolutionary' Ideals After Obama Trip

Cuba Says It Won't Alter `Revolutionary' Ideals After Obama Trip
Ezra Fieser
March 9, 2016 — 4:59 PM CET

The Cuban government said it won't renounce its "revolutionary and
anti-imperialist" ideals as relations with the U.S. thaw ahead of
President Barack Obama's visit to the Communist island this month.
In an editorial published Wednesday in Granma, the Communist Party's
official newspaper, the government said its relations with the U.S.
won't affect the goal of building "prosperous and sustainable socialism"
to consolidate the 1959 revolution. Obama's visit is an important step
in normalizing relations, the government said, a process that began in
December 2014 when Obama and President Raul Castro said they would
restore diplomatic ties after more than five decades.
"Cuba has been involved in building a new relationship with the United
States, in full exercise of her sovereignty and commitment to ideals of
social justice and solidarity," the editorial said. "No one can expect
that, for this reason, we have to renounce a single one of our
principles, or cede an inch in our defense."
Obama's March 21-22 visit will make him the first sitting U.S. president
to visit the communist island since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. The White
House made meeting with dissident groups in the country a precondition
of his trip.
In the editorial, the Cuban government criticized the U.S. role in
supporting dissidents, saying the country should "abandon the pretense
of fabricating an internal political opposition, paid for with money
from U.S. taxpayers."
Cuba also reiterated demands for the end of the five-decade long
economic embargo and the return the Guantanamo Naval Base. Fully lifting
the embargo requires an act of Congress.

Source: Cuba Says It Won't Alter `Revolutionary' Ideals After Obama Trip
- Bloomberg Business -
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-09/cuba-says-it-won-t-alter-revolutionary-ideals-after-obama-trip