President Barack Obama will meet
with Cuban dissidents on Tuesday and watch a baseball game with the
communist country's president after delivering a speech that will
conclude his historic trip with a hopeful vision for future relations.
After a day spent tussling verbally with President Raul Castro
over human rights, Obama will address the Cuban people in a speech from
the Grand Theater of Havana that will be broadcast live by state media
across the Caribbean island.
Obama, whose White
House tenure ends in January, also will meet with civil society leaders
at the U.S. embassy to back up his warning to Castro that a failure to
improve Cuba's human rights record would hinder momentum toward ending
the decades-old U.S. embargo.
The White House has not released a list of the activist leaders Obama plans to meet.
Castro
bristled at a rare news conference on Monday when asked by a U.S.
journalist about detention of political opponents. He denied such
practices and demanded a list of examples. The White House said it had
shared many such lists with the Cuban government before.
Obama's
meeting with dissidents underscores lingering tensions between the
former Cold War foes despite the rapprochement in 2014 that led to
Sunday's one-time unthinkable arrival of Air Force One on Cuban soil.
It
also reflects Obama's need to convince critics at home that his visit,
the first by a U.S. president in nearly 90 years, would not be used to
prop up the Castro government.
Obama often visits
with civil society leaders on foreign trips, particularly in countries
such as China, where Washington has raised human rights concerns as
well.
Beyond that meeting, aides said Obama
planned to use his speech to offer a vision for warmer relations
extending beyond his own time in office.
"It's
the one point to step back and talk to the Cuban people, and I mean all
of the Cuban people," White House deputy national security adviser Ben
Rhodes said on Monday.
"He'll pull together all of these themes he's been discussing ... to say why he believes we should be hopeful for the future."
Obama
wraps up his trip with a baseball game. He and his family, who
accompanied him on the trip, will join Castro at a Major League Baseball
exhibition game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban National Team.
The White House wants
the event to highlight common bonds between Cubans and Americans. It
will create a picture of the two leaders enjoying a favorite pastime to
cap the trip.
Obama leaves for a two-day trip to Argentina after the game.
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