Barack Obama made an unscheduled stop at the Bob Marley museum while on an official visit to Jamaica. PHOTO: AP.
President Barack Obama made an unscheduled stop to the Bob Marley museum in Jamaica on Wednesday night while on a visit to the country for a meeting with Caribbean leaders.
The first president to visit Jamaica in three decades, Obama arrived in Kingston yesterday evening and was met by Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller, U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica Luis Moreno and a dozen other dignitaries.
Obama promptly embraced the local color by making an unscheduled late night visit to the museum dedicated to the island’s most famous son.
On a tour of the house where the reggae legend lived until his death in 1981, Obama, looking relaxed in shirtsleeves, was shown a trophy room where Marley’s Grammys and platinum records were on display.
At the same time Marley’s hit song ‘One Love’ played over the loudspeaker.
The musician’s family transformed the rambling property into a museum complete with a well-equipped 80-seat theatre, a photographic gallery, and a gift shop selling T-shirts, posters and CDs and other Bob Marley memorabilia.
One of the rooms Obama explored held the late reggae star’s platinum records and a Grammy award.
“What a wonderful tour,” the president told museum guide Natasha Clark. “I still have all the albums.’”
Obama is in Jamaica to meet the 15-member Caribbean Community bloc.
The visit is part of an official Caribbean summit seeking to reassert U.S. leadership in the region at a time when oil-producing Venezuela’s economic clout may be receding, MailOnline said.
The Caribbean region collectively cheered when Obama was first elected president in 2008.
Calypso and reggae songs were written in his honor, the French Caribbean island of Martinique named a road after him, and Antigua’s highest mountain officially became ‘Mount Obama’ as the small country saluted him as a symbol of black achievement.
As the first U.S. president to visit Kingston since Ronald Reagan in 1982, Obama faces the challenge of convincing Caribbean island leaders that Washington is genuinely re-engaging after a long period of perceived neglect of its smaller, poorer neighbors.
The visit is expected to be dominated by discussions on energy, security and trade with the 15-member Caribbean Community, or Caricom.
Some analysts say a key reason why Washington is suddenly paying attention to the Caribbean Basin is that it wants to wean the islands off dependence on cut-rate Venezuelan oil that Caracas has long used to wield influence in the region.
From Jamaica, Obama will travel to Panama to attend a Western Hemisphere summit, where Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has made clear he will confront Obama over new U.S. sanctions.
Obama will also cross paths at the Summit of the Americas with Cuban President Raul Castro for the first time since the two announced a historic opening between their countries in December.
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