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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 6, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Hunger Strike Ends As U.S. Releases Computers For Cuba

By Bob McCubbin in San Diego

The U.S. government has thrown in the towel.

Faced with the fierce determination of Cuba supporters who waged a 94-day "fast for life" and the persistence of thousands who bolstered the hunger strikers with a telephone campaign, on May 25 the U.S. Customs Service released 339 medical computers bound for Cuba.

The computers were turned over the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church, which is committed to sending the computers to Cuba without a license from the U.S. government.

Customs agents had seized the computers from a Pastors for Peace "friendshipment caravan" in February. Caravanistas were trying to break the U.S. blockade against Cuba by taking the computers across the border to Mexico.

From there the computers were to go on to Cuba where they were to be used as part of Infomed, a health-care network. Now, according to jubilant supporters of the hunger strike, that will happen.

Victory Against The Blockade

The roots of the hunger strike go back to January, when a car and truck caravan of several hundred people attempted to cross from San Diego into Mexico with hundreds of used computers bound for Cuba.

Immigration agents and local police attacked the caravan, injuring several people, and confiscated the computers. A second attempt to take computers into Tijuana was made in February. It was also blocked.

After that, Pastors for Peace leader the Rev. Lucius Walker and four other activists began a fast.

They started the hunger strike at the U.S.-Mexico border in San Ysidro, Calif. Then they relocated to a site near the Capitol in Washington.

Although the fast sapped their physical strength, the fasters and supporters proclaimed their unwavering determination to push forward until the computers were released. They carried out a dogged campaign to pressure members of Congress and the Clinton administration, and to win media attention for the effort.

As the hunger strike continued, the fasters were confined to wheelchairs. The rate of calls and faxes to government offices stepped up.

On May 17 the federal government ordered San Diego Customs officials to return the 21 computers that had originated in Canada. The final, reluctant release of the other 339 followed a week later.

Walker and the two other remaining hunger strikers broke their fast in a "thanksgiving service" at the United Methodist Building in Washington, drinking rice broth.

A big celebration of this victory against the criminal U.S. blockade of Cuba is planned in San Diego. But organizers say an even bigger party will be held when the computers arrive in Cuba, where the entire nation has been following this struggle closely from day one.

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