Pastors for Peace Caravan Stop in Boston

The 15th Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba will be in Boston on June 19th

Come meet the caravanistas including one from England, get an update on this year's caravan by Ellen Bernstein from Pastors for Peace.

Light Refreshments

Community Church of Boston
Monday, June 19th 7 PM
565 Boyston St. at Copley Square.
Green Line Copley or Back Bay on the Orange Line See http://www.commchurch.org/ Contact :617-964-7932 or 617-783-1668

15th PASTORS FOR PEACE CARAVAN to stop in Providence and Northampton, MA on TUESDAY, JUNE 20th information below.

Over one hundred PASTORS FOR PEACE volunteers from Canada, all over the United States and five European countries will non-violently challenge the U.S. blockade of Cuba and Government travel restrictions imposed on Americans wishing to visit the Caribbean nation. Organized for the past fifteen years by IFCO [Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization] and led by Rev. Lucius Walker, the PASTORS FOR PEACE volunteers accompany a wide range of humanitarian, medical, educational and technical materials to the people of Cuba in opposition to what they and countless others insist are immoral and legal sanctions unleashed against the people of Cuba by U.S. Administrations for over four decades. This year, PASTORS FOR PEACE expects to collect more than one hundred tons of material aid as fourteen caravans made up of school buses, ambulances and minivans wend their way from starting points in Canada through most major American cities. After having converged in Texas, the entire Caravan will ship the aid via containers from a port in Mexico. The volunteers [caravanistas] will then fly to Havana for a week of people-to-people encounters with Cubans working primarily in medical, educational, housing, cultural and social services sectors.
The two-week caravan trip will traverse fourteen separate routes . It will do so without U.S. Treasury licenses for the school buses, computers, musical instruments, educational materials and medical supplies slated for distribution in Cuba. PASTORS FOR PEACE and its supporters remain convinced that to seek such licenses would be to grant legitimacy to the U.S. Blockade of Cuba which an overwhelming number of United Nations countries agree are both internationally illegal and morally offensive. Such sanctions are likewise an affront to the humanitarian impulses of thousands of U.S. citizens wishing to demonstrate their solidarity with the people of Cuba. The PASTORS FOR PEACE Caravan, sometimes also called the FRIENDSHIP CARAVAN, conducts its mission not as an act of charity but rather as one in open political defiance to unjust and illegal U.S. policies towards Cuba. On a number of occasions, Rev. Walker and other IFCO volunteers have been stopped at the US-Mexico border and only hunger strikes and determined political and legal challenges succeeded in freeing up the Caravan and its contents. Two years ago, a small group of Rhode Islanders made up part of the Caravan. Together with other U.S. citizens, they are facing fines and possible jail time for their participation as the Bush Administration shows itself ever more harsh and rigid in its anti-Cuba campaigns. This year could prove particularly trying given said inflexibility and downright meanness on the part of the Bush White House. Despite these fears, Rev. Walker and the caravanistas are resolved to defy the blockade and deliver their goods to the Cuban people.
One of the PASTORS FOR PEACE caravans will make a lunchtime stop in Providence on Tuesday, June 20th at 12:00 P.M. in front of the Cuban Revolution Restaurant, 129 Washington Street. Ellen Bernstein, a national IFCO director, will speak to the press and local supporters at the stop. Additional information will also be available.

Questions?
Contact: www.pastorsforpeace.org
email ifco@igc.org
http://www.ifconews.org/
[212] 926-5757
Local: [401] 351-3414 Providence

The is also an event in Northampton , MA in the evening in the evening on the 20th. We will be getting the contact information for that if you want to enquire.