Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Activists in Cuba to 'break' embargo Date: Tue, 24 Nov 92 14:12:10 EST Message-ID: Lines: 46 \SE A;WORLD \SS (WS) \HD Activists in Cuba to 'break' embargo \BY Lionel Martin \CR REUTERS NEWS AGENCY \DT HAVANA HAVANA - More than 100 U.S. citizens, most of them pastors and lay persons from American churches, arrived in Cuba to meet a ship carrying 12 tons of medicine, food, school supplies, bicycles and Bibles in defiance of the U.S. economic embargo on trade with Cuba. The Cuban ship, Pinar del Rio, which is scheduled to land at Havana tomorrow from Tampico, Mexico, carries donations collected in 90 U.S. cities. "We broke the blockade," the Rev. Lucius Walker, head of Pastors for Peace, the group that organized the humanitarian effort, announced on his arrival in Havana late Sunday. He said the U.S. trade embargo is inhuman and unjust. For more than three decades the strict embargo on trade with Cuba made it illegal for U.S. citizens to send any U.S.-made products to the Communist-ruled Caribbean island without a special license from the Treasury Department. Except in the case of some medicines, the department generally turns down requests for licenses. Organizers of the campaign refused to apply for the Treasury license. After being held up by U.S. border guards in Laredo, Texas, the 50-truck caravan carrying the donations was permitted to cross into Mexico. If the U.S. government decides to prosecute the organizers for defying the embargo they could face heavy fines and long prison sentences. Mr. Walker said the shipment is part of a campaign to end the U.S. embargo. "We won't back up until the devilish blockade ends," he said. The collapse of the Soviet Union and other East European communist nations dealt a heavy blow to the Cuban economy. Food is rationed and there is a shortage of virtually all consumer products. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM