Despite embargo, relief finds a way

Posted on Monday, 07.06.09
AID TO CUBA
Despite embargo, relief finds a way
A humanitarian organization that illegally delivers aid to Cuba will do
so again.
BY JOSE PAGLIERY
jpagliery@MiamiHerald.com

A bus full of medical and school supplies headed to Cuba will depart
from Miami at noon Monday, continuing its decades-long battle against
the U.S.-imposed embargo on the island nation.

Officials of Pastors for Peace, the ecumenical agency that delivers
humanitarian aid to Latin America, say they hope President Barack Obama
will lift the embargo and fulfill his promise to improve U.S.-Cuba
relations.

The organization runs a caravan that includes dozens of buses and trucks
that travel across the United States each year to pick up supplies. Each
year since 1989, the convoy crosses the U.S.-Mexico border, and loads
the goods onto a Cuban government freighter to be distributed in Cuba.

This violates federal law -- which could mean 10 years in prison and
fines of up to $250,000 for each person who takes part in the convoy --
but they do it anyway. So far, the U.S. government has not stood in
their way.

This does not concern Dr. Alberto Jones, a Cuban who arrived in Miami
during the Mariel boatlift and has been involved with the convoys each
year since 1999.

''I'm not afraid to go to jail,'' he said Sunday night at Ham & Eggery
restaurant in North Miami Beach, where the truck is parked.

Jones' activities mirror those of a growing number of Cuban Americans
who question the embargo, which was imposed almost 50 years ago to apply
economic pressure on the Cuban dictatorship in the hope of speeding its
downfall.

As Jones walked around the truck, which is set to join others in Texas
later this month, he said American treatment of Cuba disgusts him.

''If you don't see the suffering, you don't feel it,'' he said. ``I saw
kids starving and I changed my point of view. I do this [work] in Haiti,
Jamaica, the Dominican Republic -- and Cuba. What's the difference?''

The Miami truck's driver, Michael Canney, adopted the organization's
philosophy more than a decade ago. He hopes this year's trip will be the
last illegal one.

''Washington might finally realize that this has been a failed policy,''
he said.

Like others in the group, Canney has never been arrested for his actions
-- and he does not expect those in the U.S. Treasury Department to take
action this time, either.

''If they want to prosecute me for sending humanitarian aid, I would
welcome it,'' he said.

Many have criticized the group for violating the law, claiming its
members are Communists supporting Fidel Castro's regime. Jones disagrees.

''This is not a political issue,'' he said. ``It's a human drama.''

The truck was filled Sunday evening with donated computers, heart
monitors and latex gloves. According to the group's members, all are
headed for underfunded Cuban hospitals in Guantánamo province.

The group said it would continue to accept donations Monday at the truck
at the Ham & Eggery, 530 NE 167th St., North Miami Beach.

Despite embargo, relief finds a way - Miami-Dade - MiamiHerald.com (6
July 2009)
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/1128798.html