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Peace Group Fights Red Tape on Charity Trip to Cuba
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Peace Group Fights Red Tape on Charity Trip to Cuba
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By
Sheldon Scruggs
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Last month, a married couple from Ulster County and 150 others challenged the United States' trade and travel restrictions to Cuba. They participated in a special travel group that delivered hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid to that tiny island nation.
Eugene and Nora Hammond of Plattekill were members of an organization called the Pastors for Peace Friendship Caravan. For the 16th year, this organization brought such items as bicycles, computers, X-ray machines, wheelchairs and other medical equipment to the people of Cuba.
For the Hammonds, the trip and all the work collecting donated and discarded equipment was a labor of love.
"It was a lot of work for a couple of months leading up to this trip," Eugene Hammond said. "You had to go out and get supplies."
However, getting the supplies to Cuba was not a walk in the park.
The caravan of seven buses and two trucks, consisting of smaller groups from more than 40 states, was held up at the Mexican border at Hidalgo, Texas. The hot weather made for an exhausting delay. Children as young as 13 and seniors as old as 92 sweated out the wait as U.S. Customs officers confiscated 43 boxes of computer equipment. It was generally felt that this was an attempt to create dissension among the members and discourage the group from entering Mexico, the Hammonds said.
Pastor Lucius Walker, the founder and director of Pastors for Peace, based in New York City, was unwavering in the caravan's mission.
"We are committed to delivering the computers donated by generous U.S. citizens to Cuban children," he said.
The group was finally allowed to pass into Mexico, where the cargo was loaded onto a ship for Cuba. Then the members for peace flew on ahead of the cargo to Cuba.
"We were treated like heroes," Nora Hammond said.
Originally from Cuba, Nora found time to connect with some relatives. When the shipment arrived, all the supplies were disbursed to schools, hospitals and other facilities.
When all was done, the caravan returned stateside without delay or incident. The 43 confiscated boxes were released back to the group. They are now touring select states for inspection and evaluation by state and federal legislators.
Pastors for Peace was able to pull together an international cast of characters for this mission. Individual members came from England, France, Denmark, Ireland, Scotland, Austria, Uganda and the United States. Other members of the clergy, besides Walker, were pastors Luis Barrios and Tom Smith.
The legal fallout from this year's caravan still looms. Each person who set foot on Cuban soil received pages of questions about the trip from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control. In the past, members have been fined up to $10,000 for their act of "civil disobedience."
The Hammonds said they have no regrets, nor do others who made the trip with them. They say that U.S. citizens have a constitutional right to travel abroad, to exchange ideas and to protest unjust laws and practices.
© 2005 Times Herald-Record
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