【英语财经】奥巴马访古将兼顾经济与政治 Historic steps as Obama starts Cuba trip

Barack Obama arrived in Cuba on Sunday afternoon for a historic visit after taking the three-hour flight that has eluded his predecessors for the past 88 years.

Stepping off Air Force One in Havana alongside his wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia, Mr Obama began a three-day trip that the president hopes will help loosen the grip of the Cuban regime on the country’s economy and on its politics.

“Back in 1928, President Coolidge came on a battleship and it took him three days to get here,” Mr Obama later told US diplomatic staff in Havana, referring to the last presidential visit to the island only 90 miles off the Florida coast. “It only took me three hours.”

The president was met on the tarmac by Bruno Rodriguez, the Cuban foreign minister, and US Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis.

In an indication of the potential and pitfalls that awaited him, just hours before his arrival Cuba had signed the first deal with an American hotel company in 60 years but also briefly detained dozens of Cuban activists.

Starwood Hotels announced on Saturday evening a deal to manage three prestigious properties in Havana, in a landmark agreement for the American hospitality industry that has been shut out of the Cuban market since the 1959 revolution.

Hours earlier, the Cuban authorities detained Elizardo Sanchez, one of the country’s most prominent human rights activists who is due to attend a meeting with Mr Obama on Tuesday, after he arrived on a flight from Miami. He was released three and a half hours later, according to human rights groups.

On Sunday afternoon, the Cuban authorities also detained more than 50 human rights activists who hold a weekly march in central Havana.

However, one of the main risks for the president is that he ends up with the sort of lopsided engagement that has characterised relations with China since Richard Nixon’s famous 1972 visit to Beijing — a relatively open welcome for American companies but a blunt refusal to talk about political reform.

“If it appears as if he is opening the doors for large American companies to come to Cuba but that human rights concerns are being brushed aside, that will send a very awkward image for Obama,” says Christopher Sabatini, a Latin America expert at Columbia University in New York.

Mr Obama’s first stop was to meet US embassy staff in Havana. “Having a US embassy means we’re more effectively able to advance our values, our interests and understand more effectively [the Cuban people’s concerns],” he said. “This is a historic visit and a historic opportunity.”

Apart from some sightseeing on Sunday evening, Mr Obama’s agenda in Havana will mix political and economic objectives. On Monday he will meet Cuban leader Raúl Castro and will hold a forum with Cuban entrepreneurs and a large delegation of American business leaders who are on the trip. On Tuesday, Mr Obama is due to give a speech to the Cuban people and meet a group of activists, as well as attend a US-Cuba baseball game.

Starwood Hotels became the first company to take advantage of the president’s trip to announce a high-profile deal in Cuba. The group will operate the Hotel Inglaterra, one of the best-known properties in central Havana which is owned by the Cuban military, and the Hotel Quinta Avenida. It has also signed a letter of intent to manage the Hotel Santa Isabel.

Thomas Mangas, chief executive of Starwood, said the entire US hospitality industry was “watching Cuba with great interest” and that it was important to the company to be “a first mover”. Starwood said it would be making a “multimillion” dollar investment to renovate the hotels.

The announcement comes at a hectic time for Starwood, which said on Friday that it favoured a $13.1bn bid for the group by Chinese insurer Anbang. Marriott International, which had been trying to acquire Starwood, is also keen to invest in Cuba.

Starwood received an authorisation from the US Treasury department last week to begin operating hotels in Cuba, something that would have been prohibited under the longstanding economic embargo.

Despite the presence of large numbers of foreign journalists, the Cuban authorities detained on Sunday afternoon members of the Ladies in White, a group formed by the wives of former political prisoners. In what has become an almost weekly ritual, they held a demonstration after church and were soon taken away by police.

Human rights groups said the detention of Mr Sanchez at Havana airport was part of a pattern of behaviour towards activists that was evident during the Pope’s recent visit and when US secretary of state John Kerry was in Cuba last year.

“It is standard procedure in Cuba that when an important dignitary is visiting, the security services harass or threaten dissidents,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch’s Latin America division. “They make them aware that there will be consequences if they try to do something, such as hold a demonstration or give an interview to a foreign reporter.”

Under Raúl Castro, he said, repressive policies had been more “pragmatic” — there had been a large number of detentions of dissidents and activists, but for much shorter periods than when his brother Fidel was in charge.

“He is aware of the international price that Cuba pays,” Mr Vivanco said.

Josh Earnest, White House spokesman, said that the list of individuals invited to meet Mr Obama on Tuesday was “non-negotiable”.

“The White House and the president will be determining who he meets with,” he said. “I would not be surprised if there might be people on that list that the Cuban government would prefer that we not meet with.”

周日下午，在乘坐了三小时的飞机后，巴拉克?奥巴马(Barack Obama)抵达古巴，启动了一场历史性访问。在过去88年里，奥巴马之前的总统从未坐上过这一三小时的航班。

在哈瓦那，奥巴马与夫人米歇尔(Michelle)及女儿萨沙(Sasha)和玛利亚(Malia)一道走下了空军一号(Air Force One)，启动了为期三天的访问。奥巴马希望，这一访问将有助于古巴政府放松对该国经济和政治的管控。

在机场的柏油路上，奥巴马会见了古巴外交部长布鲁尼奥?罗德里格斯(Bruno Rodriguez)和美国大使杰弗里?德劳伦蒂斯(Jeffrey DeLaurentis)。

就在奥巴马抵达前几个小时，古巴与一家美国旅馆企业签署了60年来首个协议。不过，古巴也短暂羁押了数十名本国活动人士。种种状况，显示出奥巴马正面临的机遇和陷阱。

不过，奥巴马面临的主要风险之一是，他获得的是一种不平衡的承诺——古巴对美国企业相对开放地欢迎，对讨论政治改革却严词拒绝。这样的情况，也是理查德?尼克松(Richard Nixon)1972年对北京的著名访问以来，中美关系的一大特征。

奥巴马的第一站将是会晤在哈瓦那的美国大使馆工作人员。他说：“拥有美国大使馆意味着我们能更有效地推进我们的价值观、我们的利益，并更有效地理解（古巴人民的关切）。这是一次历史性的访问，历史性的机遇。”

除了周日晚上的部分观光活动。奥巴马在古巴的日程将融政治和经济目标于一炉。周一，他将会见古巴领导人劳尔?卡斯特罗(Raúl Castro)，并将召开一个论坛。参加该论坛的包括古巴的企业家，以及由随同出访的美国商界领导人组成的庞大代表团。周二，奥巴马将向古巴人民发表演讲，并会晤多名古巴活动人士，同时他还将观看美国和古巴之间的一场棒球比赛。

译者/何黎