Latin America, meanwhile, is again doing business with Castro. Silva last month led a delegation of Brazilian businessmen to Havana, where they signed $200 million in new business deals and an agreement to renegotiate Cuba's $40 million debt to the country.
In Havana last week, Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Biesla announced a series of trade and cultural agreements with Cuba, and Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque said Kirchner himself could visit early next year.
''We are under a strict directive that Cuban-Argentine relations deepen and bear fruit,'' new Argentine Ambassador Raul Abraham Taleb told The Associated Press.
At 77, Castro himself still enjoys rock-star popularity throughout Latin America. Despite decades of dictatorship, he is seen by many as a champion of the poor and a symbol of defiance against an overbearing superpower.
At Kirchner's inauguration in May, just a month after the dissident trials, thousands of Argentines greeted the Cuban leader with chants of ''Fidel! Fidel! Fidel!'' at a speech that had to be moved outside to accommodate the masses.
That adoration exerts pressure on politicians in the region.
''Generally, Latin American leaders are farther to the right than the populace, but they have to be mindful of their public opinion,'' said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington. ''Reaching out to Castro has always been a way for leaders to establish their bona fides with the left.''
The United States, meanwhile, has grown increasingly unpopular in the region. The mostly poor countries of Central and South America still are waiting for the promised benefits of the hard-medicine free-market reforms promoted by Washington over the last decade. The region has felt ignored by the administration since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, diverted American attention to the Middle East. Opinion polls showed overwhelming opposition in Latin America to the U.S. attack on Iraq.
''It's like when your daughter is mad at you, she goes out with the biker,'' said Joe García, executive director of the anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation in Miami. ***