Cuban-American, Republicans lawmakers hit Obama over castro handshake

United states Republicans have expressed anger over President Barack Obama's handshake with Cuban leader Raul Castro with one senior lawmaker likening the act to appeasement of the Nazis.  The gesture between Obama and the brother who took over the duties of longtime Cuban dictator Fidel Castro occurred in south Africa at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela, and seen by millions Around the world on live television. A white house official said it was not "pre-planned," but that did not stop Republicans from assailing Obama for greeting an iron-fisted ruler. "It gives Raul some propaganda, to continue to prop up his dictatorial, brutal regime, that's all," said senator john McCain, who lost against Obama in his 2008 bid for the White House. McCain said it was a mistake to "shake hands with somebody who is keeping American in prison." Jailed U.S contracter Alan Gross this month marked four years in prison in Cuba, after his arrest and conviction there for distributing communications equipment to Jewish groups. "What's the point?" McCain said when asked by AFP if Obama should have made the gesture. "Neville Chamberlain shook hands with Hitler," he said. Senator Macro Rubio, whose parents left Cuba three years before Fidel Castro took power, offered a more measured reaction. Obama "should have asked him about those basic freedoms Mandela was associated with that are denied in Cuba," Rubio told ABC news. Republican Senate James Inhofe said the hand-shake was "not appropriate." Cuban-American  lawmakers also voiced disappointment Obama shaking the hand of Castro, calling it a "propaganda coup" for the Cuban government. It is nauseating, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., who fled Cuba with her family when she was a child, told Fox News. Speaking later at a hearing with secretary of state John Kerry, the Congress women held up photos of the handshake and said political dissidents would be "disheartened" by them. "Sometimes a handshake is just a handshake, but when the leader of the free world shakes the bloody hand of a ruthless dictator like Raul Castro, it become a propaganda coup for the tyrant," she said. 
Sen. Macro Rubio, R-Fla., also released a statement saying: "if the president was going to shake his hand, he should have asked him about those basic freedoms Mandela was associated with that are denied in Cuba. Ted Cruz, the only senator in the Congressional delegation to Mandela's memorial, walked out of the service in south Africa when Castro spoke. " just as Mandela was released after 27 years in prison, Castro should finally release his political prisoners; he should hold free elections, and once and for all set the Cuban people free," the Texas senator's spokesman Sean Rushton said late Tuesday. Washington maintains a 52-year embargo against the communist island nation, but ties have thawed somewhat as Obama pledged to reach out to US enemies including Havana.