From: nyt%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (NY Transfer News)
Subject: Friendshipment for Cuba Welcomed on W.Coast
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: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 07:40:15 GMT


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


PEACE FRIENDSHIPMENT FOR CUBA WELCOMED IN WEST COAST CITIES

by Toby Mailman
NY Transfer News Service

According to Tom Hanson, one of the coordinators of the
Peace Friendshipment to Cuba, a west-coast delegation of the
caravan has recieved warm welcomes on its journey toward Mexico.
In a telephone interview with WBAI from Chico, California this
morning, November 10, Hanson said his group, which will be
meeting up with eight other groups on November 22 to cross the
Mexican border, was warmly received in several cities where they
stopped to give presentations. Expecting to collect about $250 a
day to help support the caravan, they have been collecting an
average of $1,100 per day.

The caravan is made up of 44 vehicles and more than 100
participants from all walks of life, all ages, all races and from
all over the country. They started from nine different locations
throughout the United States and will meet to travel through
Mexico. In Tampico they will load material aid, such as powdered
milk, bibles, bicycles and medicines, onto a Cuban freighter.
Some participants will travel with the aid. The rest will fly to
Cuba. All participants will have an eight-day stay in Cuba,
hosted by various church organizations. They will return with
the vehicles to the United States on December 1.

The Mexican government is preparing a reception for the
caravan, said Hanson. There will be concerts and parties to
celebrate their mission, which is to minister to the needs of the
people in Cuba, and to draw attention to the cruelty of the US
imposed embargo against Cuba. (The Mexican government recently
expressed its objection to the Torricelli bill whose purpose is
to keep other countries from trading with Cuba.)  The embargo is
more than thirty years old, and the Torricelli law, recently
ratified by the US congress, tightens the embargo, prohibiting
foreign subsidiaries of US companies from trading with Cuba.

Participants in the Peace Friendshipment face a possible 10
years in jail and a fine of $250,000 each for confronting the
"trading with the enemy" law and the Torricelli law, should the
US government decide to prosecute them when they return from
Cuba. Lucius Walker, a baptist minister who is the main
coordinator of the caravan, described the Torricelli law as a
terrorist law. He said that he, as a man of religion, along with
other religious leaders and lay people, must answer the call of
their consciences above laws which they see as unjust. Walker is
the head of IFCO (Interfaith Foundation for Community
Organization) and a founder of Pastors for Peace, which has sent
similar caravans to Nicaragua and El Salvador.

WBAI-Pacifica radio in New York City (99.5 FM) is giving daily
progress reports on the caravan on the morning program at 7:00AM.

For further information, or to be listed on the emergency
response network should the caravan run into problems, call IFCO
at (212)926-5757.


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