Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Over­cast skies and heavy rain­fall greet­ed Cuban pres­i­dent Ra&ua­cute;l Modesto Cas­tro Ruz to T&T yes­ter­day.

Cas­tro and his del­e­ga­tion touched down at the south ter­mi­nal of Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port at 10.53 am in a Russ­ian-made Il­lyushin 96-300 air­craft, via Cubana Air­lines. He is here on a State vis­it and de­parts to­mor­row. The one-day Fourth Cari­com/Cu­ba Sum­mit of­fi­cial­ly start­ed yes­ter­day at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, Port-of-Spain. Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and sev­er­al mem­bers of her Cab­i­net, of­fi­cials of the Cuban Em­bassy and oth­er dig­ni­taries were in at­ten­dance to wel­come 80-year old Cas­tro.

He was of­fi­cial­ly elect­ed as pres­i­dent by the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly on Feb­ru­ary 24, 2008, af­ter his broth­er, Fi­del, who was ail­ing, an­nounced his in­ten­tion not to stand for pres­i­dent again on Feb­ru­ary 19, 2008.

Richards ar­rived a few min­utes af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Both had to be shel­tered by um­brel­las as they left their ve­hi­cles. The rains per­sist­ed as Cas­tro's air­craft was seen in the grey skies mak­ing its land­ing ap­proach. Mem­bers of the De­fence Force braved the in­clement weath­er which drenched their uni­forms.

Richards, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters and all oth­er of­fi­cials were shel­tered by dozens of um­brel­las as they made their way to­wards the air­craft.

Oth­ers opt­ed to walk through or stand in the down­pour. Al­though the show­er caused dis­com­fort and in­ter­rupt­ed pro­to­col, Richards, Per­sad-Bisses­sar and For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan were able to re­ceive Cas­tro at the foot of the air­craft. Cab­i­net Min­is­ters hud­dled un­der the um­brel­las and were un­able to stand at the re­cep­tion line, which is cus­tom­ary. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har were spot­ted shar­ing an um­brel­la. Cas­tro was es­cort­ed by the Guard Com­man­der and Chief of De­fence Staff, Ken­rick Ma­haraj, to in­spect the Guard of Ho­n­our. The re­cep­tion last­ed close to 30 min­utes and al­so in­clud­ed the pres­i­den­tial salute and play­ing of the Cuban and T&T na­tion­al an­thems re­spec­tive­ly.

Cas­tro left in a black BMW, bear­ing the num­ber plate Venezuela AFW 89W, around 11.30 am for the Kapok Ho­tel, St Ann's. The PM re­mained at the VIP Room to meet with her min­is­ters. She was ex­pect­ed to vis­it af­fect­ed res­i­dents in Sans Souci fol­low­ing land­slides over the week­end. How­ev­er, she can­celled that be­cause of Cas­tro's vis­it. Yes­ter­day, Cas­tro vis­it­ed the Memo­r­i­al Park for the lay­ing of the wreath at the ceno­taph and at­tend a State din­ner. To­day Cas­tro and his del­e­ga­tion will par­tic­i­pate in the sum­mit.