"This time the
authorities decided
not to confront us"
-Lucius Walker
"WE have come at a time when there are new
threats coming from the administration of George W.
Bush, which indicate how much fear they have of
Cuba’s achievements," said Rev. Lucius Walker, upon
arriving in Havana at the head of the solidarity
caravan.
Walker,
executive director of the Interreligious Foundation
for Community Organization/ Pastors for Peace,
explained that this time all the caravanistas
reached their destination together.
Unlike last year, "this time the authorities
decided not to confront us," commented Walker, so it
will not be necessary to mount a 10-month campaign
to get aid materials returned.
In 2005 several members of the solidarity project
remained on the U.S. – Mexican border to demand the
return of part of the aid shipment arbitrarily
retained by U.S. authorities.
The arrival on Sunday of 97 caravanistas
coincides with the release by the White House of the
second report known as the Commission for Assistance
to a Free Cuba, with new acts of aggression and the
ratification of acts like the Helms-Burton and
Torricelli, the blockade and other intervention
measures.
The caravanistas come from the United States,
Canada, Mexico, Denmark, Sweden, the UK, Scotland
and Germany, and they passed through more than 120
U.S. and Canadian cities and communities collecting
humanitarian for Cuba.
Pastors for Peace and their caravan are an
awaited tradition that is inspired by sentiments of
love and friendship, said Sergio Corrieri, president
of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the
Peoples.
"It is a respected project," he said "because we
know how much they are risking to do what they are
doing, given they are defying the Cuba travel ban
and running the risk of punishment by U.S.
authorities.
Cuban Reverend Raúl Suárez, director of the
Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center,
affirmed that the caravanistas travel without
permission from the U.S. Treasury Department, thus
defying measures designed to block humanitarian aid
to Cuba.
"This attitude," he explained, "follows what is
clear to Walker and to many U.S. —as well as Cuban—
Christians: the church does not need to ask
permission to love its neighbor." (PL)
