WASHINGTON — In a symbolic ceremony marking the end of 54 years of hostility, Cuba will raise its flag over a limestone mansion here on Monday and officially reopen its embassy. Hundreds of people, including U.S. lawmakers, diplomats and others are expected to join visiting Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, who will lead a delegation of about 30 officials from Havana, including Cuba’s chief negotiator on the normalization of diplomatic ties, Josefina Vidal.
A trio of Cuban-American lawmakers will hold a news conference Monday in Miami to denounce the embassy reopening. “Allowing the opening of the Cuban Embassy in Washington is nothing but another indefensible capitulation by the Obama administration to an avowed enemy of the U.S.,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.), who will host the conference along with Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R., Fla.) and Carlos Curbelo (R., Fla.). In Cuba, leading dissidents say the regime has sharply increased its repression and detained a growing number of its opponents since the December announcement that the two countries would work to re-establish diplomatic relations. “Without a doubt there has been a big increase in the number of arbitrary detentions and beatings of activists,” said José Daniel Ferrer, the leader of the Cuban Patriotic Union, by telephone. Like the nuclear agreement reached last week with Iran, the normalization of diplomatic relations with Cuba has grown out of the Obama administration’s policy of engaging with longstanding adversaries.