Obama invokes 'future of hope' for Cuban people

US President Barack Obama has invoked "a future of hope" for Cuba in an unprecedented live TV address delivered from the Grand Theatre in Havana.

President of US BARACK  HUSEIN OBAMA/photo internet

Mr Obama said he had come to Cuba "to bury the last remnants of the Cold War" after decades of conflict.

He told Cuban President Raul Castro that he did not need to fear a threat from the US nor from "the voice of the Cuban people".

Mr Obama is the first sitting president to visit Cuba in 88 years.

In his keynote speech on the last day of his three-day visit to Communist-run Cuba, Mr Obama said it was time for the United States and Cuba to leave the past behind and make a "journey as friends and as neighbours and as family, together" towards a brighter future.

He urged Cubans to "leave the ideological battles of the past behind" and to define themselves not through their opposition to the US but just as Cubans.

But he also said he believed that citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear and to choose their government in free elections.

He said it was no secret that the Cuban and US governments disagreed on many issues.

Mr Obama acknowledged that there were "flaws in the American system: economic inequality, the death penalty and racial discrimination".

He said those were just a few samples and that Raul Castro had "a much longer list" of US shortcomings and had reminded President Obama of many of them.

"But open debate is what allows us to get better," he said. "Democracy is the way to solve these problems," he added.

After the speech, Mr Obama left to meet Cuban dissidents, the most controversial part of his itinerary in the eyes of the Cuban government.

President Castro was visibly angered on Monday when a US reporter asked him about political prisoners held in Cuba.

Not accustomed to probing questions from the media, President Castro challenged the reporter to give him a list of political prisoners and denied Cuba was holding any.

Among the dissidents Mr Obama is meeting on Tuesday are expected to be members of the Ladies in White, a group which campaigns for the release of political prisoners.

Just hours before Mr Obama landed in Havana on Sunday, dozens of their members were arrested as they held their weekly protest in front of a church.

source: BBC.COM

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Hirya no Hino NewsObama invokes 'future of hope' for Cuban people