The White House is sending two representatives to the funeral of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, the White House said on Tuesday.
“There’s a formal process” involved in naming a higher-level presidential delegation, spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters. “That will not be taking place this time, but the United States will be represented at the event.”
Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, will travel to Cuba for the service, as will the top diplomat to the island nation, Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis, Earnest said.
The White House press secretary dismissed questions about how the respresentation doesn’t count as a delegation.
“The president has decided not to send a presidential delegation to attend the memorial service today,” he said.
Earnest said Rhodes was one of the architects behind Obama’s shift in policy toward Cuba, which began in late 2014 with the opening of diplomatic relations between the U. S. and the Raul Castro regime.
At the State Department, spokesman John Kirby said the delegation is “unofficial” because Castro wasn’t running the government when he died.
“As I understand it, it’s based on the fact that Fidel Castro was not head of state, his brother Raul is head of state, and I think it was really based on that,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters. “And there’s a history there, in terms of his conduct and character as a leader that obviously factors into these kinds of decisions.”
Obama’s response to Castro’s death has been closely watched by congressional leaders and international figures alike. Castro was an avowed enemy of the United States who helped provoke the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and a human rights abuser who imprisoned and executed political opponents. But Obama is working to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba in the hope that a soft-power rapprochement might lead to greater freedom and prosperity in the island, despite criticisms that his actions will help prop up the Castro regime.
“We know that this moment fills Cubans — in Cuba and in the United States — with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation,” Obama said in response to Castro’s death last week. “History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was far more complimentary, expressing “deep sorrow” over Castro’s death. “Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation,” Trudeau said. “While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for ‘el Comandante.’ ”
After that statement provoked international criticism, Trudeau’s team announced that he would not attend the funeral. “His schedule doesn’t permit it,” a spokeswoman said.
