Posted on 07/12/2002 6:10:46 AM PDT by Constitution Day
Thursday, July 11, 2002 5:18AM EDT
A peaceful trip
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By YONAT SHIMRON, Staff Writer
Jim Stockwell wanted to donate his 1990 blue Chevy truck to a good cause.
First, he went to his son's school. Then he went to his church. When neither place took him up on his offer, he decided to do something more radical.
On Wednesday morning, the longtime social activist from Raleigh met up with a group of like-minded people and hit the road. By next week, the group hopes to cross into Mexico on buses -- or in Stockwell's case, in a truck -- loaded with medical supplies and food for the people of Cuba.
The trip, sponsored by Pastors for Peace, is a form of civil disobedience. The U.S. government forbids trade with Cuba and bars citizens from traveling there. Though a new law allows for the transfer of humanitarian aid, the government likes to regulate where it goes and who gets it.
Pastors for Peace has no intention of allowing the government to interfere with its plans. Leaders of the 14-year-old organization, based in New York, refuse to apply for a license to deliver the goods, since they believe that in doing so they would be recognizing an embargo they see as immoral.
As it has on nine previous occasions, the group will test U.S. resolve at the border, fasting if need be, until the border patrol lets them through. The 80-person caravan, supported by religious congregations nationwide, will drive to Tampico. The supplies, including Stockwell's truck, will be loaded onto a cargo ship. The "pastors," as they are called, will fly to Havana.
Those going say they want Cubans to know Americans care about them.
"What the U.S. is doing is the same thing we're accusing Iraq and the former president of Yugoslavia of doing: crimes against humanity," said Stockwell, a 46-year-old former organic farmer who now works at Home Depot. "It's my job as a world citizen to counteract that negativity that the U.S. exports. Not all Americans believe in what their country is doing."
On Tuesday evening, one of 10 caravans headed for the border passed through Chapel Hill. The crew of college students and aging civil rights demonstrators were feted by several dozen social activists at the Community Church of Chapel Hill before heading Wednesday morning to Atlanta.
At the church, Stockwell, wearing a "Peace is Patriotic" T-shirt, had a chance to meet his traveling companions -- first and foremost bus driver and jack-of-all-trades Bill Hill.
Hill, who lives in Arizona, has been driving a school bus to Cuba for 10 years as part of the pastors' group. He wasted no time asking Stockwell about his truck.
"Does it have a spare?"
"No, it doesn't," Stockwell said.
"Does it have a jack?"
"Yes."
"Does it have a lug wrench?"
"Yes."
"Good," said Hill. "We'll find a spare somewhere along the way."
The 10 caravans, such as the one that came through Chapel Hill, will converge Monday in San Antonio. If all goes smoothly, they plan to arrive in Cuba on July 20. They will stay nine days, mostly at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Havana.
Several Triangle churches, including St. Thomas More Catholic and Binkley Memorial Baptist in Chapel Hill, are among dozens nationwide that contributed money or supplies for the trip. The Episcopal Diocese of Newark, N.J., contributed vitamins. A group of Anabaptists in New York gave a mini-school bus.
Melissa Franke, a graduate student in communications at UNC-Chapel Hill, said she was so impressed with what she read about the group that she decided to join this year's caravan.
"They're making use of the moments when the Bush administration's rhetoric is weakest -- the ability of Americans to travel and take aid to Cuba," said Franke, 28. "That's where the government hasn't been able to answer the opposition very effectively. Demonizing [Cuban President Fidel] Castro only goes so far."
Pastors for Peace was founded in 1988 by the Rev. Lucius Walker Jr., after he was shot by Contra rebels while on a trip to Nicaragua. Walker, a Shaw University graduate and a Baptist preacher in New York City, began the U.S.-Cuba Friendship caravans 10 years ago.
In 1994 and 1996, the "carvanistas," as they are called, encountered stiff resistance from the U.S. government at the border. They limited themselves to water, maple syrup and lemon juice -- for 23 days in 1994, and for 94 days in 1996 -- until the government relented and let them through. These past few years, they haven't had to wait for more than a day. But they are prepared to stay longer.
"It's not easy driving across the country in this heat in a 1988 school bus that can fall apart any minute," Hill said. But the leathery-skinned Vietnam-veteran-turned-mechanic said he has formed lasting friendships with the people of Cuba.
When he arrives, he outfits one of the buses into a roving bicycle repair shop. Bikes are the most common form of transportation in Cuba, and many line up for his services. This year, Hill is taking 200 new bicycle tires with him.
As he speaks, Hill draws students around him. He likes it that way.
"The material aid is not the important part," Hill said. "It's taking young people to Cuba and educating them to come back and get the embargo lifted."
That's what Stockwell wants, too. As he prepared for his trip, Stockwell thought up an excuse for his employer.
If military reservists can ask their employers for time off to fight their country, why shouldn't he be allowed to take time off to work for peace?
He didn't have to use that argument, though. Home Depot allowed him to take a month off.
Stockwell plans to donate his truck to a Cuban farmer and buy a used car when he returns.
"I believe hope is the answer," said Stockwell, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Raleigh. "If we don't believe that peace will come to Earth one day, then I wouldn't be able to do the work I do."
| © Copyright 2002, The News & Observer. All material found on newsobserver.com is copyrighted The News & Observer and associated news services. No material may be reproduced or reused without explicit permission from The News & Observer, Raleigh, North Carolina. The News & Observer is owned by The McClatchy Company. |
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What the U.S. is doing is the same thing we're accusing Iraq and the former president of Yugoslavia of doing: crimes against humanity...Fidel doesn't factor into this, oh, no. Fidel is the victim.
It's my job as a world citizen to counteract that negativity that the U.S. exports.She must subscribe to this pledge:
The Earth PledgeI pledge to protect the Earth,
And to respect the web of life upon it,
and to honor the dignity,
Of every member of our global family.
One planet, One people, One world, in harmony,
With peace, justice, and freedom for all.
Please, no more! I just ate breakfast.
It's a good thing he doesn't work for me.
I would have laughed in his face if he asked for a month off for "peace".
Then he could have gotten all the "peace" he wanted while at home and unemployed.
Sounds like a FReep could be in order.
I didn't even do a search since NC Freepers seldom post from the News & Disturber.
I saw the article when I went to lunch yesterday & it pissed me off deluxe.
Refiriéndose a la tragedia de Cuba, Thomas afirmó en un artículo publicado el 12 de Julio de 1986 en la revista “The Spectator”: “La comparación (del régimen de Castro) debe hacerse con los campos de concentración nazis. Aunque en Cuba no hay todavía cámara de gases, ha habido sin embargo, experimentos criminales de índole biológicos diseñados para comprobar cuanto puede sobrevivir el ser humano sin recibir alimentos, palizas, encierro en solitario, y muchas otras formas de maltrato. El relato de Valladares de los trabajos en las canteras no es diferente, ni más humano, que los relatos de la ‘vida’ en Manthausen. No debemos de olvidar que las brutalidades en la Alemania Nazi duraron a lo sumo 12 años y los peores casos de crueldad en el campo de concentración de Auschwitz duró cuatro años.”
El 11 de Abril de 1986, se reunieron en Paris un grupo de personalidades de renombre mundial, principalmente socialista europeos y algunos incluso simpatizantes de la revolución cubana, convocados por ‘Resistencia Internacional” para formar parte de un tribunal tipo Nuremberg, encargado de juzgar los crímenes de Castro.
Entre los miembros del tribunal estaban Jorge Semprún, escritor español, ex-prisionero de Buchenwald y en ese momento Ministro de Cultura del gobierno socialista de España; René Tavernier, presidente del “Pen Club” francés; Bernard Stasi, miembro del parlamento francés; Haing Ngor, actor camboyano y ganador del Oscar por su actuación en la película “The Killing Fields”; Bernard-Henry Levi, filósofo francés; Marie Madelain Fourcade, heroína de la resistencia francesa; León Boubien, jurista; Monique Garnier Lancon, vice-presidente del Instituto de la Seguridad Europea; Martín Gray, escritor y sobreviviente del Geto de Varsovia y del campo de concentración de Treblinca; Osmund Faremo, miembro del Parlamento Noruego y presidente del “caucus” Inter-parlamentario de Noruega; Pascal Bruckner, escritor; Yves Montand, actor francés; Jean Francois Ravel, escritor y filósofo. Ante el tribunal fueron presentados como testigos doce supervivientes de las cárceles para prisioneros políticos de Cuba.
El jurado concluyó que; “la práctica generalizada en Cuba es de: arrestos arbitrarios, sentencias dadas por tribunales militares sin audiencia pública ni abogado defensor, interrogatorios que duran varios días con golpizas, heridas, y torturas. El internamiento en campos de labor forzada sin suficiente comida, sin ropas, y sin cuidados médicos, siendo víctimas de la promiscuidad al ser encerrados con presos comunes criminales. Se consideró muy grave el encarcelamiento de niños hasta de 9 años de edad y jóvenes adolescentes expuestos a las peores torturas y a la promiscuidad de las prisiones. Además, se probó que los métodos usados para obtener confesiones nos recuerdan los métodos usados por Hitler en los campos de concentración: asfixia por sumergimiento, mutilaciones, etc., en adición a métodos de terrorismo intelectual usado con el fin de que los prisioneros renuncien a sus principios. Son particularmente grave los experimentos biológicos hechos en los prisioneros a manos de médicos Soviéticos.”
El tribunal concluyó: “No debe repetirse el crimen de ignorar la realidad de los campos de concentración nazis, como pasó durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Volverlo hacer es convertirse en cómplices de esos crímenes.” (Lumiere Sur Cuba, Internationale de la Resístanse, 102 Avenue des Champs Elysées, 75008, Paris.)
Cuarenta y tres años después del inicio de la tragedia de Cuba y dieciséis años después del veredicto condenatorio del Tribunal de “Resístanse International” de París, el mundo continúa de espaldas a la tragedia del pueblo cubano y cómplice de los crímenes de la tiranía castrista.
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