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-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted
from the June 20, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
Cuba solidarity activists are continuing to pressure the U.S. government to live up to its agreement to release computers it still holds and let them be sent to Cuba.
The Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization/Pastors for Peace waged a broad struggle this spring to send 400 computers to Cuba. The computers were destined to be part of a medical network in Cuba to assist rural clinics and universities.
When the U.S. government seized the computers, five activists waged a 94-day hunger strike demanding their release. On May 25, the government verbally agreed to release the computers.
Since then, most of the computers have been released to the United Methodist Church in San Diego. The church, cooperating with Pastors for Peace, plans to send the computers to Cuba without a license, defying the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba.
Other computers, seized at the Vermont border, have yet to be released. Pastors for Peace is currently negotiating with the government to release the computers.
"We are optimistic that the computers will be released," the Rev. Lucius Walker told Workers World. Walker is a leader of IFCO/Pastors for Peace and was one of the hunger strikers. "But there are good reasons never to completely trust the government's agreements.
"The fasters and a strong support team will be remaining in Washington, and we aren't leaving until the struggle is over," Walker continued. "We know that our negotiations for the computers' release are due to our supporters' organizing efforts. We are urging everyone to keep the pressure on," he said.
"The computers are still not in Cuba," Walker noted. "Our efforts can't stop until they are."
Walker asked supporters to continue calling the Treasury Department at (202) 622-1100 and the White House at (202) 456-6797 to demand that the government stop stalling and allow the computers to go to Cuba.
- END -
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