Caravan returns after delivering aid to Cuba

After driving all night on a two-lane road, the 17th Pastors for Peace Friend shipment Caravan lumbered through the dusty streets of Reynosa, Mexico, at dawn on July 17, then crossed the Rio Grande River into Hidalgo, Texas, at 6:30 a.m.

We were back in the U.S. after completing our mission of circumventing Wash ing ton’s economic blockade and delivering 60 tons of humanitarian aid to the people of Cuba, after which we shared an inspiring and informative week of solidarity with them.

Each of the caravanistas wore a grey T-shirt bearing the motto of the caravan in yellow: “Cuba is our neighbor. End the blockade now! If there is a law against loving your neighbor, I want to break it.”

Caravan leader Rev. Lucius Walker of Salvation Baptist Church in Brooklyn had declared victory at the very outset of the mission, after we were able to recover 45 boxes of computers that had been seized by U.S. Customs agents at the border last summer. They were delivered to the New Orleans Survivors Council.

“This is indeed a people’s victory. We refused to buckle under. We refused to just go away,” said Walker.

For 10 months, outrage over the computer seizure had led to thousands of phone calls to the Commerce and Treasury departments. Friends of Cuba in Denmark and Sweden sent more computers in solidarity. Support groups maintained weekly vigils in Washington, D.C., and other cities.

Mia Cruz, a feisty teenage revolutionary with the International Action Center and Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST), had flown with me from New York City on July 2 to join more than 100 other caravanistas who were converging on McAllen, Texas, in cars, vans and school buses.

They had traveled thousands of miles, starting from places as far apart as Vancouver and New England and driving through 127 cities in all the lower 48 states. They stopped at churches along their 14 routes, where they were joined by hundreds of supporters who contributed humanitarian aid for the children of Cuba. Caravanistas were given food and a place to sleep at night, often on pews in churches.

Many young people of color from New York City rode on a bus that took them through New Orleans en route to the Texas border. Mia Cruz rode back with them on the return trip, arriving in New York on July 23. She said that the New Yorkers stopped again in New Orleans to tell the people about their impressions of Cuba. New Orleans remembers that Cuba offered 1,600 doctors and medical aid after Katrina.

Before crossing into Mexico, Kalia, a 17-year-old member of Rev. Luis Barrios’ church in New York, spoke about New Orleans at a news conference in McAllen on July 3.

“We spent a night in New Orleans. It said a lot about our government. I learned a lot. Basically the poor places of New Orleans with the big African American population looked like the hurricane had just hit. Personal belongings were on what was once their lawns, cars were just rusted and crashed and destroyed. Houses were just completely collapsed.

“And then we went to the rich part of New Orleans and it looked like Katrina never even hit. It was sad. It was beautiful. I saw people mowing their lawns. It was like something you would see in a movie. It was in contrast to all of the poverty and all of the devastation that I saw in a place just five minutes away.

“I think that it’s really important that we go to Cuba, because the Cuban government wouldn’t have its people die or let them starve or not help them just because of the fact that they don’t have economic power. I think that’s really important. I mean not everything has to be about money. Not everything has to be status oriented, though our government tries to make things that way. So I’m just going to experience something new, just to see for myself how a new world or a new coexistence can happen.”

Despite U.S. government lies, the Bush administration bluster and the corporate media blackout on Cuba, the Pastors for Peace Caravan has become a dynamic institution led by African American and Puerto Rican pastors who make a reality of their liberation theology in a fierce defense of the Cuban socialist revolution.

Their success is reflected in the character of the caravan. More than half of the 100 or so caravanistas were of African or Caribbean descent, Latin@s or Indigen ous people from Mexico. Half were young people and half were making their first Cuba challenge. Canada, Sweden, Den mark, Scotland, England and Mexico were all represented. Three Cuban Americans were reunited with family during our visit.

The caravan took several days to regroup in McAllen. Vehicles needed repairs. The material aid had to be sorted through, labeled and reloaded. This work was carried out under a hot sun in 100-degree heat. The caravanistas needed to be trained for anticipated difficulties at the border. We needed sensitivity training and guidelines to prepare us for our eight-day tour of Cuba.

Our ride across the border into Mexico passed without incident. Customs officials made a cursory inspection and we were on our way before noon. At Tampico we offloaded the material aid onto a dock with the volunteer assistance of Mexican dock workers. Two school buses and an ambulance were loaded on steel pallets for shipment. This work went on until 3 a.m., so many of those who flew to Cuba on the morning of July 8 had little or no sleep.

The Cuba caravan works like a guerrilla army in deploying people and vehicles and supplies over great distances. Prepa ra tions for the next caravan will begin soon. This enormous volunteer effort will be organized by a soft-spoken English activist named John Waller who works out of the Pastors for Peace office in Harlem.