Caravan to Cuba

The Deseret News has published an article today on the Caravan to Cuba: Cuban aid caravan will defy blockade. I received a call last week from a D-News reporter gathering information for the article. I spoke to the Caravan folks yesterday who are appearing tonight in Salt Lake. They are headed here from Boise.
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A “friendshipment” caravan headed for Cuba will stop in Salt Lake City today, as part of a Pastors for Peace challenge to the U.S. blockade on aid.
The caravan, which will take medicine, textbooks and other supplies to Cuba, is traveling to more than 120 American and Canadian cities before crossing the U.S. border into Mexico on July 2 in an effort to challenge U.S. restrictions on travel and aid to Cuba.
At its Utah stop, People for Peace and Justice of Utah will host a free public event at Free Speech Zone, 2144 S. Highland Drive at 7 p.m. Keynote speaker will be Gloria La Riva, coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five. La Riva has organized medical aid shipments to Cuba and Iraq.

Pastors for Peace is a special ministry of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), created in 1988 to deliver humanitarian aid to Latin American and Caribbean countries. The group calls the U.S. blockade of humanitarian aid to Cuba “an immoral policy that uses hunger and disease as political weapons.”
During past “friendshipment” caravans, says Deanna Taylor of People for Peace and Justice of Utah, U.S. border guards have confiscated some items and have detained some of the caravan participants. “I don’t think there’s any rhyme or reason for what they confiscate.”
This 17th caravan is traveling via 13 different routes through the United States and Canada, going by school bus, truck and car, carrying supplies collected from groups along the way. The caravan refuses U.S. Treasury Department licenses, “as a collective challenge to the blockade and travel ban,” according to Pastors for Peace.
Since 1992, IFCO/Pastors for Peace have delivered more than 2,350 tons of “urgently needed assistance to the Cuban people,” according to the group.
For more information, contact Tom King at 502-8556 or at bluesguy@xmission.com.