From: ww%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (Workers World Service)
Subject: Peace Pastors' New Embargo Challenge
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: The NY Transfer News Service
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 08:20:24 GMT


Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit


Pastors for Peace announces new challenge to Cuba embargo

By Sharon Ayling

The Rev. Lucius Walker Jr., executive director of IFCO/Pastors
for Peace, announced plans for his group's next initiatives to
challenge the U.S. embargo of Cuba at a Dec. 7 Washington press
conference.

Walker had just returned to the United States after leading the
U.S.-Cuba Friendshipment caravan, which successfully broke the
embargo by delivering 15 tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba without
a license from the U.S. government.

`ONE ACT IN A LONG STRUGGLE'

With the words "We broke the blockade!" Walker declared the
Friendshipment caravan's dramatic victory over the U.S. embargo
of Cuba. "However," he continued, "this is only one act in a long
struggle to end the U.S. blockade of Cuba."

Walker asserted that the embargo and the recently passed
Torricelli law are infringements on individual human rights and
international sovereignty that must be directly challenged. He
called for volunteers to join in his group's upcoming actions.

In January, Pastors for Peace will sponsor a medical aid
challenge. Participants in about 25 cities will hold simultaneous
news conferences announcing their intent to deliver medical
supplies to Cuba. Then they will transport the aid they have
collected aboard commercial flights destined for Mexico City.

The participants will unite in Mexico City for an international
news conference. Then they will proceed to Havana with the
supplies and deliver them to the Martin Luther King Junior
Memorial Center there. The group will spend a week in Havana
distributing the aid and learning about the impact of the trade
embargo.

With the recent Friendshipment, Pastors for Peace will not apply
for a license under the terms of the U.S. embargo, and will not
accept such a license. They say that to do so would be de facto
recognition and validation of the embargo. Violators of the U.S.
embargo against Cuba are subject to fines of up to $250,000 and
jail terms of up to 10 years.

In April, the group is sponsoring a delegation of African
American clergy who have been involved in the civil-rights
movement. Some of the clergy have previously visited Cuba, while
others will be involving their congregations in Cuba solidarity
work for the first time.

In July, the group will launch the second U.S.-Cuba
Friendshipment caravan. Walker said, "Our goal is to double the
number of vehicles and the number of drivers involved in the next
caravan."

CHARGES REDUCED

Speakers at the news conference also reported on the status of
the legal defense of four caravan participants arrested during a
confrontation with U.S. officials at the U.S.-Mexico border on
Nov. 20.

The charges against Ajumoke Tokunbo, an African American woman
from Oakland, Calif., are being reduced to two counts of
misdemeanor assault on a federal officer. Federal prosecutors had
threatened to charge her with felonious assault and violating the
Trading with the Enemy Act.

Charges against the remaining three are expected to be dropped.
IFCO announced plans to mobilize support for Tokunbo's defense if
the reduced charges against her are not dropped as well.

The Friendshipment's legal team is also working to win the
release of medicines federal officials had seized during the
November caravan.

For more information, people can contact Pastors for Peace in
Minneapolis at (612) 378-0062 or IFCO in New York at (212)
926-5757.

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; email: ww%nyxfer@igc.apc.org; "workers"
on PeaceNet; on Internet: "workers@mcimail.com".)


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