[NYTr] Pastors for Peace Cuba Friendshipment News Roundup Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 16:47:45 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit [Nothing here on the problems at the Canadian border, but several stories from around the country on the Friendshipment Caravan, from "The Cuban Nation" for Jul 2, 2007. -NY Tranfer] See http://www.thecubannation.com The Seattle Times - Jul 2, 2007 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003770765_cubabus02m.html Caravan to Cuba: Buses bring medical supplies, solidarity By Linda Shen Seattle Times staff reporter One of 14 buses carrying "friendshipments" to Cuba is slated to depart from Seattle today. The Friendshipment Caravan program b in its 18th year b will make more than 120 stops throughout the U.S. and Canada collecting medical supplies and journals before the goods are flown to Havana from Tampico, Mexico. Many people don't understand the shortages the U.S. embargo on Cuba has created, said Mark Koenig, director of Providence Health International. Koenig's organization collects medical supplies in Lacey for distribution, and has done so for years. "What I experienced was very well-trained people very committed to helping people and not being able to get what they needed to do it," Koenig said. Lucia Bruno is communications director for the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization, of which Pastors for Peace b which is sponsoring the caravan b is a special ministry. She said people donate everything from bicycles to hospital machines, walkers and medicine b about 60 tons worth in 2006. Between one and 300 people join the caravan each year, she said. Tom Warner, secretary of the Seattle/Cuba Friendship Committee, said the caravan isn't just charity: It's to protest the U.S. embargo against Cuba. "People as old as 90 and as young as 16 participated in these things," Warner said. Seattle's Friendshipment bus leaves at 6 p.m. Monday from El Centro de la Raza, 2524 16th Ave. S. Copyright B) 2007 The Seattle Times Company *** Seacoastonline (New Hampsire & Maine) - Jul 2, 2007 http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070702/NEWS/707020323 In defense of Cuba In Kittery, caravan picks up donations for seniors By Susan Nolan KITTERY, Maine b An organization engaged in civil disobedience stopped in town Sunday afternoon to pick up medical supplies for Cuba and to talk about the "immorality" of the United States' embargo on Cuba. "That's the main point," said retired Dr. Tom Whitney of South Paris, Maine. "Civil disobedience. It's purposeful," he said. The group refuses to get a license from the United States government to ship this humanitarian aid to Cuba. "We refuse to do so because we want to have no complicity whatsoever with an economic blockade, which we see as immoral, illegal and cruel," he said. So the group brings its humanitarian aid across the border to Mexico each year and ships it to Cuba from there. Yesterday's group at "The Place" on Government Street in Kittery was part of the 18th Pastor's for Peace Friendshipment Caravan, a group that canvasses the country for medical and other supplies for Cubans. The bus that came to Kittery is among a dozen or so currently making their way across the United States to Mexico. Michael Murray of Cape Neddick said it's the second year he has invited the caravan to Kittery. "This year's theme is nursing homes," said Murray. Among donations to the Cubans from locals were walkers and adult diapers. Carolyn Cooper of Dover first got involved in the program thorough her church, Rye Congregational. Cooper took a church trip with Friendship Force International, a nonprofit international cultural exchange organization which seeks to personal friendships "across the barriers that separate people." Cooper said it opened her eyes to the plight of Cuban people, who are unable to get certain medical supplies because of the 45-year-old U.S. embargo on that country. After returning from her initial trip to Cuba, Cooper joined forces with Pastors for Peace in order to bring help to the people she met in Cuba. And while Pastors for Peace, a part of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization, has a political message, Cooper said her humanitarian aid to Cuba is not about politics. "To me, it's a people-to-people movement," said Cooper. And it's not about pastors, either. The Rev. Luis Barrios, an Episcopal priest from New York who is leading the caravan to Cuba, said he was one of only three pastors in the group of 165 that went to Cuba last year. Though the organization was started by pastors, it no longer has any church affiliation and there are few pastors who participate. In fact, said Barrios, who spoke to the group in Kittery, it's not about religion. It's just about justice. "Ninety percent of the people (who are involved) don't go to church," he said, "and most of the people who come in our caravan don't believe in God, but they practice justice," he said. Cuba has free medical care for all of its citizens, as well as free eduction, said Barrios. After the nuclear accident at the nuclear plant Chernobyl, Russia, in 1986, the United states took in 65 Russians and gave them medical treatment. "Cuba took 5,000," said Barrios, "and offered them free medical treatment for life." *** Corvallis Gazette-Times - Jul 2, 2007 http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2007/07/02/news/community/satsun%20renames/1loc02_councilor.txt Councilor to go on mission to Cuba By Kyle Odegard Corvallis Gazette-Times Corvallis City Council member Mike Beilstein is leaving the mid-Willamette Valley for Cuba on Monday, as a member of a Pastors for Peace humanitarian mission. The group makes an annual trip to bring medical supplies and other materials to the Communist country, on which the United States has an embargo and travel ban. bWebre openly breaking the law,b Beilstein said. bItbs deliberate civil disobedience.b The Corvallis City Council, by consensus, gave permission for Beilstein to be absent for one month, which will allow him to take the journey. If the council had not decided that, his seat would have become vacant. Beilstein said the trip helps people and he disagrees with the travel and trade bans, which he said have hurt the Cuban economy and Cuban-Americans who find it difficult to visit family. bI donbt accept any of this anti-Communism that was traditional in America in the b50s. Communism to me means that you have a government, and people do things cooperatively,b Beilstein said. Beilstein is a former Socialist party member who is now a Green, because the two parties merged. bWebre doing this to support the Cuban people. But I think Castro supports the Cuban people, too.b This is the second year in a row Beilstein is making the trip. In summer 2006, about 80 Americans went to the island nation, and this year, there should be about the same number, Beilstein said. This year, a Corvallis dentist is providing two exam chairs and an oxygen equipment. Beilstein declined to provide the names of those businesses. But he said that First Presbyterian Church in Corvallis had given $450 to cover the expenses for transporting the items on a two-week bus ride. Beilstein said hebll probably make the Pastors for Peace mission every year now, since hebs retired as a chemist at Oregon State University. At 12:30 p.m. today, the First United Methodist Church, 1165 N.W. Monroe Ave., will hold a send-off event that will include discussions about the trip and U.S. foreign policy. *** Pueblo Chieftain - Jun 30, 2007 http://www.chieftain.com/life/1183190033/1 Caravans to deliver help to Cubans By MARVIN READ THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN Two area pastor types soon will begin their various roles in a journey to Cuba that will irk the U.S. government, irritate Cubans who lament the Fidel Castro overthrow of Fulgencio Batista's government in 1959, but offer what they see as humanitarian aid. The United States has had a trade embargo in place against the communist state since 1960, and has let it grow in severity, even though, every year since 1991, the United Nations General Assembly has passed a non-binding resolution condemning it. Only the United States, Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands voted against the resolution last November. And so it is that the Rev. Max Hale, from Colorado Springs, and Steve Parke, who's filling in for First United Church of Christ Pastor Randy Wilcher for a vacation period, will greet members of the ecumenical Pastors for Peace movement at Christ Congregational Church on July 8. The visitors will be among 14 caravans of ministers and laity - as many as 130 are planned - traveling from Canada and the northern tier of American states. They are wending their various ways to McAllen, Texas. There, on July 13, many will begin a journey to Tampico, Mexico, where some will take a flight to Havana. The 18th annual Pastors for Peace caravan is affiliated with the New York City-based Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization. Hale, former pastor of Vista Grande Church in Colorado Springs, will make the whole trip, but Parke will return from Texas to duties here. The U.S./Cuba Caravan made its first journey in 1992, with 15 tons of items, including Bibles, despite government impediments. During last year's trip, the somewhat religious, somewhat political but very much humanitarian effort delivered 60 tons of materials to Cubans. Over the years, the IFCO has used various legal means to successfully challenge the U.S. government's attempts to confiscate vehicles and aid bound for Cuba. Thirteen other caravans will stop that weekend at churches in various parts of the United States - including Los Angeles and San Diego; Phoenix and Flagstaff, Ariz.; Lawrence, Kan.; Birmingham, Ala.; and Little Rock, Ark. There, each group will gather more donations of clothing, educational and medical supplies and money with which they can pay journey and shipping expenses and purchase more goods. Hale, a retired minister of the United Church of Christ-Congregational denomination, said he fights the embargo "because it is unjust. It's just not fair to keep putting the squeeze on poor people." In Pueblo on July 8, members of a caravan that began in Boulder will be hosted by the Rev. Faye Gallegos' congregation at Belmont's Christ Congregational. They'll worship together, solicit money, support and supplies and then the "caravanistas" will move on to Texas. Some, but not all, of the caravan participants will travel on to Tampico, where they will help load the items onto a ship for transport to Cuba. Many will fly to Havana for a weeklong, July 19-26 educational program. For many, the trickiest part of the journey may be getting back into the United States from Mexico, having violated a travel ban to Cuba. U.S. border officials have often made re-entry complicated, Hale said. "Our purpose is to meet people and help where we can," Hale said of the caravan. Parke said, "We offer outstretched hands, not a stiff arm." "Oh, sure, we're always aiming to protest the embargo," Hale said, "but we'll be careful enough so that we don't do anything that distracts from what we're really doing, trying to help a people that's been injured by the embargo for 47 years." * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . 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