First by himself. Then, with the rest of the Congressional delegation joining him.
The meeting was encapsulated in a press release by the Castro regime, which aimed to show how these American visitors went to Cuba to pay him homage and to unconditionally improve relations with his dictatorship.
Ironically, also today, Cuban pro-democracy leader Antonio Rodiles and the Estado de Sats civil society project released an analysis of the human rights situation in Cuba during the last five years.
(Of course, the Leahy delegation has no made time to meet with Rodiles, The Ladies in White or any other courageous pro-democracy activist on the island.)
Thus, the following paragraph in Estado de Sats's analysis couldn't be more timely and appropriate:
"It is incomprehensible how democratic governments can embrace a totalitarian regime principally responsible for the disaster that our nation is living. The Cuban people have the right to live -- to live and to feel proud about their homeland. Why not listen to them? Why allow the repression and national ruin caused by this regime to be covered by a cloak of absurd and outdated rhetoric?"
