I received an alert that the Pastors for Peace Caravan was stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol at the U.S.-Mexico border this morning. 31 computers destined for Cuba were seized.
As always, the Pastors for Peace buses are carrying medicines and other materials to show their
solidarity with the people of Cuba. Rev. Thomas Smith, President of the Board of Directors for the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization/Pastors for Peace stated, “We’ve had 31 computers seized by the Customs and Border Patrol at the U.S.-Mexico border. These computers were destined for classrooms, clinic and hospitals in Cuba. These are 31 classrooms, clinics and hospitals that now will not have the opportunity to have computers.”
Pastors for Peace has been challenging the embargo with Cuba annually for over fifteen years:
The First Friendshipment Caravan traveled in November 1992. 100 caravanistas carried 15 tons of simple humanitarian aid — powdered milk, medicines, Bibles, bicycles, and school supplies. The US government had never before seen a direct grassroots challenge to the blockade, and they responded with force. CNN cameras filmed US Treasury officers assaulting a Catholic priest who was carrying Bibles to take to Cuba. Our emergency response network, and the CNN coverage, prompted thousands of calls to Washington from around the US; the caravan was allowed to cross.
With each Friendshipment caravan, with each successive effort to challenge the US economic blockade of Cuba, the US government has been compelled to back down, to relent, to soften its enforcement of the blockade. … active nonviolence has been a winning strategy.
Supplies were last confiscated in 2005, when US Customs seized 45 boxes of computer equipment destined for children with learning disabilities. Through lobbying congresspeople in 2005, the seized computers were released and ultimately delivered to Cuba. It can happen again.
Pastors for Peace calls upon all opponents of the U.S. blockade:
Take a moment to protest this outrageous and cruel confiscation of humanitarian materials by contacting the Office of Foreign Assets Control and demanding the computers be released.
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Please call OFAC and object. The Office of Foreign Assets Control, which regulates the U.S. blockade of Cuba, can be reached at 1-800-540-6322 or ofac_feedback@do.treas.gov . Ask them to release the computers.
Cross-posted at Street Prophets and PFF.