HAVANA -- (AP) -- The first U.S. governor to visit Cuba since the 1959 revolution
 says he favors an end to economic sanctions against the communist country, but
 that doesn't mean he supports Fidel Castro's government.

 ``Forty years of communist rule has left its mark,'' Illinois Gov. George Ryan said
 after meeting on Monday with Cuban dissidents. He said that opposition leaders
 told him that ``the problem with Cuba is Fidel Castro.''

 Just as the Cuban government surely welcomed Ryan's call for an end to the U.S.
 embargo, his meeting with Cuba's better known dissidents and public criticism of
 the communist system were certain to sting.

 Cuba's state-controlled media depicted Ryan's five-day trip as a reflection of
 growing U.S. opposition to the trade embargo.

 Cuban officials have increasingly reached out to American officials who have no
 connection to Miami and Washington - the two U.S. places where resistance to
 ending the sanctions is strongest.

 ``The dissidents we met with told us that lifting the embargo was the right way to
 go,'' Ryan said.

 The governor said that four ambassadors told him during a separate meeting that
 ``the embargo should be lifted, not only for the harm it does to the Cuban people
 but because it gives an excuse for Fidel Castro.''

 Critics of the sanctions have long said Castro uses the embargo as a scapegoat
 to deflect blame for Cuba's economic ills.

 However, the embargo, imposed in 1962 to punish Castro's government, has
 strong support in the United States from a politically influential faction of Miami's
 Cuban exile community. Ryan received criticism from some Cuban Americans for
 making the trip to Cuba.

 Ryan, a first-term Republican, stressed that his visit was simply to ``build bridges''
 with the Cuban people.

 The government here has placed much importance on the first visit by an
 American governor to the island since the 1959 revolution that brought Castro to
 power, even loaning some of the president's top security men for his protection.

 As of Monday, Ryan had not met with the Cuban president, but it was expected
 that he would before returning home Wednesday.

 On Monday morning, Ryan met with the ambassadors from Canada, Switzerland,
 Costa Rica and Germany at the gated home of the new chief of the U.S. mission
 to Cuba, Vicki Huddleston.

 Also at the residence, he met separately with some of Cuba's most prominent
 dissidents, including Elizardo Sanchez, Jesus Yanez and Osvaldo Paya.

 ``We want change with or without the embargo,'' Sanchez said later during a rare
 public meeting of dissidents with foreign reporters at a Havana restaurant.

 Sanchez, a longtime human rights activist, welcomed Ryan's trip because it
 promoted the idea of ``a normal relation between the two countries instead of this
 Cold War mentality.''

 Ryan also visited a children's hospital Monday, where he presented a donation of
 medical supplies. His delegation was delivering more than dlrs 1 million in
 humanitarian aid during its five-day visit. Today's schedule called for a visit to an
 agricultural cooperative.

 Ryan described the children's hospital as ``pretty stark, pretty bad.''

 ``They cannot do the surgeries they need to do because they don't have the
 equipment they need, the drugs,'' the governor said. ``We are here to help the
 children and people of Cuba. They should not be used as a diplomatic weapon.''
 

                     Copyright 1999 Miami Herald