Former US president Jimmy Carter will meet with Cuban President Raul Castro, the leader of Cuba’s Catholic Church and the nation’s Jewish community during a visit to Havana that begins today, amid speculation he will seek the release of a jailed US aid contractor.
His public schedule was issued on Saturday by the Cuban government, which invited him for his second visit to the country, the first coming in 2002.
He is the only US president, in or out of power, to visit Cuba since a 1959 revolution that transformed the island into a communist state.
Since leaving office in 1981, Carter has on occasion served as an unofficial diplomatic troubleshooter, including in August last year when he went to North Korea to secure the release of an American imprisoned there.
PRIVATE MISSION
The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, said on Friday that Carter, 86, would be in Cuba for three days on a “private, non-governmental mission” to “learn about new economic policies and the upcoming [Communist] Party Congress and to discuss ways to improve US-Cuba relations.”
The latter have been stymied by the case of Alan Gross, who has been jailed in the Cuban capital since Dec. 3, 2009. Following a trial this month he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
A Cuban court found that he had committed “acts against the independence and territorial integrity of the state” for attempting to provide illegal Internet access to Cuban groups.
US SHENANIGANS
Gross, 61, was in Cuba working under a controversial US-funded program promoting political change on the island, which Cuba views as part of longstanding US efforts to undermine the government.
Carter’s first known stop today will be the main headquarters for Cuban Jews, located in Havana’s Vedado neighborhood.
He will then meet with Catholic Cardinal Jaime Ortega, who spearheaded talks with Castro last year that led to the release of dozens of Cuban political prisoners.
Tomorrow, Carter will visit a Catholic convent in Old Havana, then meet with Castro in the afternoon.
HELLO TO FIDEL?
It is also likely he will visit the president’s older brother, former Cuban president Fidel Castro, but that has not been announced.
Carter will wrap up on Friday with a press conference, before leaving at a still unconfirmed time, the government said.
Carter is respected by Cuban leaders because during his 1977-1981 term as US president he took significant steps to improve US relations with Cuba, which have been bitter since the revolution.
However, the 1980 Mariel boatlift, in which Fidel Castro allowed 125,000 boat people to flee to the US, hurt Carter politically and contributed to former US president Ronald Reagan defeating him in his quest for a second term.
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