At Maine border town
'Let Cuba Live' will challenge blockade
Special to Workers
World
On Aug. 18 the Maine-based solidarity group Let Cuba Live
and its supporters will for the second time take a shipment of
medical aid destined for Cuba to the U.S.-Canada border in
Maine. They will attempt to cross the border at Coburn Gore
without applying for a license.
"We won't apply for a license and we would in fact refuse to
accept one if it were offered," said Judy Robbins, a member of
the group from Sedgwick, Me. "We do not want to be complicit
with a law that seeks to withhold food and medicine from our
neighbors."
The caravan of aid-bearing trucks and cars carrying
supporters from New York and the New England states will
assemble at a hospitality house in the Farmington area for the
drive to the border.
On Aug. 10 attorneys Philip Worden from Northeast Harbor and
Nancy Chang with the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a
53-page petition with U.S. Customs on behalf of 13 members of
Let Cuba Live who, on July 2, had attempted to carry
humanitarian aid from the U.S. to Canada for trans-shipment to
Cuba.
During an hours-long struggle with U.S. Customs and
Immigration officials at the Coburn Gore checkpoint, activists
managed to walk about one third of their shipment across the
border and place it in the care of Canadian friends. U.S.
Customs seized the balance, which included hospital bed sheets,
blankets, adult diapers and patient gowns, as well as a newborn
warming and monitoring station and two anesthesia machines,
each one capable of fulfilling the anesthesia needs of a small
hospital.
The petition seeks the release of these medical supplies for
delivery to Cuba, and states: "The commissioner should return
the seized goods because the U.S. embargo against Cuba violates
both the U.S. Constitution and international law."
This article is copyright under a Creative
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