Cuban President in Venezuela in First Official Foreign Visit

Simon Romero
New York Times
December 13, 2008

President Raúl Castro of Cuba arrived here on Saturday on his first official foreign visit since assuming power two years ago from his ailing brother, Fidel. The decision to visit Caracas first highlights Cuba’s continuing reliance on subsidized oil and other forms of aid from Venezuela.

The visit is an opportunity for President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela to burnish his revolutionary credentials. He has vowed to strengthen ties with Cuba’s new leadership despite cultivating a much warmer relationship with Fidel, who is 82 and living in seclusion...

...After stopping in Caracas, Mr. Castro is still expected to travel to Brazil in the coming days, raising the prospect of stronger relations with Brazil and, perhaps, even of a potential option for back-channel dialogue with the coming Obama administration.

The government of Mr. da Silva, a former leftist labor organizer, has expressed a strong desire to strengthen relations with both Havana, which Mr. da Silva has visited twice in the past year, and Washington.

“The U.S. approach to Cuba will unfreeze with Obama,” said Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the Americas Society, a policy organization in New York focusing on Latin America. “Lula has both the international cred and the ideological cred to be an interlocutor in this process.”

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