MIAMI: Barack Obama’s historic talks with
Cuban President Raul Castro on Saturday
were the culmination of a long quest by the
US president that included meetings with
moderate Cuban-Americans frustrated with
the hardliners in their own community who
refused to engage Havana.
The Obama-Castro meeting in Panama
followed a breakthrough agreement by the
two men last December to work toward
normalizing relations, including seeking to
restore diplomatic ties that Washington broke
off in 1961.
A shift in attitudes in the Cuban-American
community, most much of which is based in
Miami, helped smooth the way to Obama’s
change in policy, with a younger generation
far more amenable to contact with the
communist-ruled island.
To be sure, hardline exiles still oppose closer
ties with Havana. While there were no public
protests over the meeting between the two
presidents, there was grumbling on local
radio and on social media.
Likely Republican 2016 presidential
candidate and Miami resident, Jeb Bush,
who is close to conservative Cuban exiles,
summed up the negative feelings of
hardliners in a tweet: “Why legitimize a cruel
dictator of a repressive regime?”
Obama has been taking the temperature of
the Cuban-American community for years.
His first practical lesson took place over a
smoke break outside a fund-raiser at the
Kaleidoscope Club in Chicago in 2004 when
he was running for the US Senate.
Former Miami City manager Joe Arriola told
Obama - both men were trying to quit
cigarettes - how to appeal to Cuban-
American voters.
“I told him not to listen to the crazy right-
wing in Miami ... that my kids’ generation
thought differently,” recalled Arriola, a
prominent Cuban-American politician.
Arriola, invited Obama to Miami that fall for a
fund-raiser that netted his Illinois Senate
campaign $50,000.
“We brought him down several times after
that. He would have breakfast with us and we
would pick up people to introduce to him,”
Arriola said.
The chance encounter in Chicago sparked
interest by Obama in the changes in the once
solidly Republican Cuban-American enclave
in south Florida.
The Miami fundraiser was kept quiet because
Arriola, a 67-year-old former Republican,
was still serving the city of Miami, and
another participant, Manny Diaz, was the
mayor. They were unsure how the Cuban
exile community - known for taking to the
streets - would react.
The encounter over a cigarette was also the
beginning of a family friendship that would
see two of Arriola’s sons - Ricky and Eddy -
join Obama’s finance committee in both of
his presidential runs. That a small group of
Cuban-Americans saw purpose in helping a
rising Senate candidate in Chicago turned
out to be something that would help shape
US policy.
“They identified Obama early on and saw the
potential and brought him to Miami and got
him immersed,” said Carlos Saladrigas, one
of a dozen Cuban-Americans who
participated in the 2004 fund-raiser at the
home of developer Jorge Perez.
Arriola’s message about changes in Miami
exile thinking was not just an idle boast.
Polling showed a generational shift was
taking place as younger Cuban-American
leaders emerged who were more open to
engagement with Cuba than a previous
generation, who left the island in the early
days after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.
During his first presidential campaign, and as
part of a wider foreign policy vision that
favored more openness to dialogue, Obama
advocated direct talks with Cuba, and even
said he was willing to sit down with Raul
Castro.
He traveled to Miami to deliver a speech
laying out a plan to undo restrictions on
remittances and travel to the island for
Cuban-American families, while keeping the
long-standing trade embargo in place.
In his re-election in 2012, Obama won
almost 50 per cent of south Florida’s Cuban-
American vote, almost double what
Democrats had been used to getting.
The White House also reached out to other,
younger voices in the Cuban-American
community, including Felice Gorordo, co-
founder of Roots of Hope, a non-partisan
group of young Cuban-American activists.
How far could the administration go without
sparking rioting in Miami, one former top
Obama adviser for Latin America policy, Dan
Restrepo, asked Gorordo during a 2012
meeting to discuss reforming Cuba policy.
“I said: ‘Shaking hands (with Castro).’
That’s something that’s hard to swallow in
Miami. Anything up to that is tolerable,”
Gorordo told Reuters.
When an unexpected handshake between
Obama and Castro became the most talked-
about VIP moment at Nelson Mandela’s
memorial service in December 2013,
Obama’s aides took note of the muted
reaction from Cuban-Americans.
By then, secret talks with Cuba were already
under way, aimed at releasing a jailed US
contractor in Cuba, Alan Gross, while also
restoring diplomatic relations.
Obama appears to have accurately gauged
the mood in Miami.
One weekend in January, Cuban exiles
protesting Obama’s outreach to Havana
were far outweighed by demonstrators
protesting the captivity of Lolita, a killer
whale at Miami Seaquarium.
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