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23-Jul-2003

Pastors for Peace take 80 tons of aid for Cuba over US/Mexico border in defiance of US embargo

by: Alex

IFCO/Pastors for Peace activists, en route to Cuba.
PHOTO: IFCO/Pastors for Peace/Chris Pforr ,

Texas: Hundreds of volunteers from Pastors for Peace crossed the US/Mexico border this month with 80 tons of humanitarian aid for Cuba.

In defiance of further US restrictions on aid and travel to Cuba, volunteers from the US, Canada and Mexico carried millions of dollars in medicines, medical equipment and computers over the border at McAllen, Texas on 17 July, without applying for a US Treasury Department license.

The action marks the fourteenth US/Cuban Friendshipment Caravan project of the Inter-religious Foundation of Community Organisation (IFCO) challenging what they consider to be the "immoral laws" governing US trade to Cuba.

The US administration permits a few licensed shipments of small quantities of humanitarian aid while imposing a broad and cruel blockade.

The group believes that this licensing system is both immoral and illegal; immoral because it endangers the lives of Cubans and inflicts suffering on innocent civilians; illegal because it uses sanctions imposable only in war-time against a declared enemy in order to force another nation to change its government.

Since 1992, IFCO/Pastors for Peace has delivered more than 2,250 tons of urgently needed assistance to the Cuban people.

Beginning 29 June, this year’s volunteers traveled along ten separate routes across the US, stopping in nearly one hundred cities to collect humanitarian aid donated by churches, schools and community groups before converging in the McAllen area on 14 July.

This 14th caravan will deliver aid destined for Cuba's national elder care program and engage in people-to-people exchanges with leaders in health care.
It also features an Elders Brigade of senior activists and clergy who will meet with their Cuban counterparts.

They intend to visit the Latin American School of Medicine, where 60 US students are currently studying medicine to provide health care to medically underserved communities in the United States.

Contact
IFCO/Pastors for Peace, 402 W 145th Street, New York, NY 10031, USA (+1 212 926 5757; fax 926 5842; http://www.ifconews.org).

Source: IFCO