Obama thrills Cubans with call for change

US President Barack Obama told Cubans on March 22 he wants to "bury" decades of Cold War conflict and then joined his counterpart Raul Castro for some baseball diplomacy to wrap up his historic visit to the communist island.

Speaking from Havana's ornate Gran Teatro, Obama -- the first US president to visit Cuba in 88 years -- thrilled Cubans with a call for democracy and greater freedom of expression.
 
"I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas," Obama said to cheers during his unprecedented speech, carried live on Cuba's tightly controlled state television.
 
There were extraordinary scenes of clapping and cheering as Obama laid out his vision for change in the one-party state and close US-Cuban relations.
 
"Creo en el pueblo cubano," he said, repeating himself in English: "I believe in the Cuban people."  

But Castro, sitting in a theater box with other high-ranking officials, sat stone-faced as Obama said: "Voters should be able to choose their governments in free and democratic elections."  

Cubans watching at home or in bars were enthusiastic.
 
"I think Obama touched the soul of the Cubans," said dockyard worker Lazaro Bosch, 62. "Obama is a man of ideas, with very clear thoughts, and I think he really wants to push for a new relationship."  

Immediately after the speech, Obama left to meet with dissidents who have been harassed and sometimes arrested under Castro's rule including Berta Soler, the leader of the Ladies in White, and veteran activist Elizardo Sanchez.
 
Obama praised their "extraordinary courage."          

Obama drew some of the loudest applause of his speech when he called on the US Congress to lift a decades-old...