not my demands. our demands. you know what the demands are. those demands will include religious and political freedom for the cuban people. and to brifreeing political prisoners. i want to bring in juan carlos, political voter for cnn espanol. thank you for being with us. as we larry those words from donald trump and we see those new possibility of change in cuba, how likely do you think it is that the u.s. and cuba will be able to work together? it s been a very difficult process. it s complicated, because cuba doesn t see this, they see it as the u.s. has to have a different
under fidel castro s watch cuba was not a welcome place to some of the world s foremost leaders, but things started changing in recent years under fidel s brother raoul. pope francis visited in 2015 and called on the communist nation to open itself to the world. he prays one major step in that direction, restoring diplomatic ties with the uted states. this historic visit with president obama ace years ago. for decades it was close to americans, and look at this that s not the holdover from the cold war, the country being closed to americans is the holdover. but this tick purchase, obama s visit marked progress above all, a new way of doing things in a new era. both the u.s. and cuba shut the door on a long-standing feud and opened their own doors to one another. let s bring in cnn correspondent rafael romo live
then who s that? this holiday, share the joy of real cream. (flourish spray noise) share the joy of real cream. .with reddi-wip. (flourish spray noise) welcome back. so grateful to have you with us here as we follow this breaking news this morning that former cuban leader fidel castro has died. he was 90 years old. the u.s. and cuba have had a long strained relationship. it s only recently started to normalize, it seems. right, going back to 1960, not long after castro took
those people must be celebrating right nows as we see these images from miami. just to be clear, i understand the emotional impact of this, and given the personality and the mark on history that fidel castro will have left, regardless of what you think of him, regardless of the politics. but the people who are in the street right now, presumably they re not looking for substantive change in the short term? they would certainly hope so, i can tell you that. they would certainly hope that. but in terms of realistic expectations? realistic expectations, i m of the opinion it is going to take some time for cuba to see real change. we were talking to a columnist from the miami herald who would like to think otherwise but agrees with the same assessment, it is going to take a long time before we see real change in cuba. all right. rafael romo, cnn correspondent.
from the vatican. reporter: yes. expressing its condolences and sadness over the death of the former cuban leader. now, it s interesting you mentioned that fidel castro was a jesuit, he actually went to a jesuit secondary school but by the time he was in college he was already showing definite left wing tendencies. now, the relationship between the vatican and fidel castro was rocky to say the least. in 1961 when cuba declared itself a socialist country, it closed down the main catholic university. it shut down 350 catholic schools. it exproepuated hundreds of catholic churches and, in fact, in 1969 it banned christmas as a paid holiday. at the time fidel said it was time to allow people to work on the sugar cane harvest at the