John Kerry leads delegation to Cuba for flag raising at U.S. Embassy

HAVANA, Cuba - Secretary of State John Kerry presided over the official reopening of the U.S. Embassy to Cuba under a blazing Caribbean sun Friday morning, declaring an end to "too many days of sacrifice and sorrow, too many days of suspicion and fear" over more than half a century of estrangement between the two countries.

As a U.S. Army brass band played the American national anthem, the three elderly Marines who last lowered the flag here in January 1961 handed a new, folded banner to the young members of the new contingent of Marine guards, who raised it and saluted.

Crowds of several hundred Cubans, some of them waving small American flags, stood behind barricades outside the iron fence surrounding the embassy. When the Army brass band played the Cuban national anthem, some in the crowd outside shouted "Viva."

Before an invited audience of about 300 U.S. and Cuban officials, along with foreign diplomats, Kerry praised President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro for what he called "a courageous decision to stop being prisoners of history and to focus on the opportunities of today and tomorrow."

Saying that "the time has come for us to move in a more promising direction," Kerry said that "in the United States, that means recognizing that U.S. policy is not the anvil on which Cuba's future will be forged." Cuba's future, he said, "is for Cubans to shape."

But, he warned Cuba's communist leaders, "the United States will always remain a champion of democratic principles and reforms."

"We remain convinced that the people of Cuba would be best served by a genuine democracy, where people are free to choose their leaders, express their ideas and practice their faith; where the commitment to economic and social justice is realized more fully; where institutions are answerable to those they serve; and where civil society is independent and allowed to flourish."

Kerry is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Cuba since the Franklin Roosevelt administration.

"As two people who are no longer enemies or rivals, but neighbors," he said in English and Spanish, it is "time to unfurl our flags, raise them up and let the world know that we wish each other well."

Kerry also met with Cuban civil society leaders, including a selection of political dissidents. While many support the opening, others have joined some U.S. lawmakers in claiming that the administration gave up the principal U.S. leverage in Cuba and got little in return from the repressive government.

Kerry has rejected criticism that Cuban dissidents were not invited to attend the morning embassy ceremony, describing it as a "government to government event." Several senior administration officials, discussing the sensitive issue on condition of anonymity, said they were taken aback by the criticism.

"You don't hold an official event to which the host government is invited and make it a forum for government opponents," said one.

Kerry said that human rights would be "at the top of our agenda" in discussions Friday with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. He said that the U.S. is committed to pursuing "tough" issues, including human rights, with the Cuban government, and that further progress will be necessary for normalization of relations to proceed.

In a late afternoon meeting with reporters who traveled here with him, Kerry defended administration handling of human rights issues. "Certain things are going to be required," he said, "and one of them will be progress on that front." He said he told Rodriguez that there would be little chance of persuading Congress to lift the embargo without human rights improvement.

Despite the restoration of relations, the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba remains in place. Obama has called for Congress to lift it, along with remaining restrictions on U.S. travel to the island, but lawmakers have resisted.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) said in a statement: "A flag representing freedom and liberty will rise today in a country ruled by a repressive regime that denies its people democracy and basic human rights. This is the embodiment of a wrongheaded policy that rewards the Castro regime's brutality at the expense of the Cuban people's right to freedom of expression and independence."

The embargo continues to be a rallying point for the Cuban government. In an article published in Granma, the official Cuban Communist party paper, on the occasion of his 89th birthday Thursday, revolutionary leader and former President Fidel Castro criticized the United States for everything from dropping an atomic bomb on Japan near the end of World War II, to setting the stage for global economic crisis by amassing most of the world's gold supply.

That crisis, Castro said, had battered Cuba's economy, even as it is "owed compensation equivalent to damages, which have reached many millions of dollars" as a result of the U.S. sanctions.