HAVANA, January 22: Pope John Paul II has landed in Cuba to begin a historic five-day visit, bringing a message of reconciliation in the long, bitter US-Cuban standoff, and of ``truth and hope'' for Cuba's hard-pressed people. President Fidel Castro greeted John Paul under a blazing sun at Havana's airport yesterday, leading the Communist nation's welcome for the pontiff who has harshly criticised communism during his 20-year papacy.``I come as a pilgrim of love, of truth and of hope,'' the Pope said in his arrival statement. John Paul appeared at the door of his green-and-white plane and walked slowly and carefully down the steps. Castro -- wearing a double-breasted blue suit, rather than his usual green fatigues -- stepped forward and clasped the Pope's hands.
Children dressed in white held up a box of Cuban soil, which John Paul kissed -- a customary practise.
Castro and the pontiff, who used a cane, moved slowly away from the plane along a red carpet, at one point pausing to speak together briefly.Black-robed cardinals in scarlet sashes stood among Castro's soldiers on the tarmac, crowded with foreign reporters and camera crews.
Extending his greetings to the Pope, Castro said, ``Holy father, we feel the same way you do about many important issues of today's world and we are very pleased to do so.''
He then denounced the 36-year US embargo of Cuba as ``genocide''.
``There are new attempts at murder of a people that refuses to submit to the dictates of those much more powerful than ancient Rome, which for centuries destroyed with wild beasts those who refused to renounce their faiths.''He also sought to identify his revolution's ideals with the Church's.
Meanwhile, most men who fought with Ernesto Che'Guevara, the Argentine revolutionary whose victory in Santa Clara clinched Cuba's revolution might be expected to ignore the Pope's visit.
Most swore off religion to join Guevara's 1958 campaign against dictator Fulgencio Batista and, later, Cuba's Communist Government. But grizzled survivors
of the campaign say they welcome the Pope's visit and even planned on attending his mass on Thursday in Santa Clara. ``We're all going to see him. The Pope is coming like a head of state,'' said Jose Lavalle, a one-time rebel who now lives at the combatants' house, a social center for veterans of the revolution.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
