Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently asked Questions

WHAT IS IFCO PASTORS FOR PEACE?

The Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization started Pastors for Peace after a study delegation was on a ferryboat in Nicaragua, along with 200 Nicaraguan civilians, when the ferry was attacked by Contra forces recruited and armed by the US government.  Two people were killed and 29 wounded, including IFCO Director Lucius Walker.

The aims of Pastors for Peace are:

To deliver material aid to support the victims of "low intensity" war in Latin America.

To offer this aid as solidarity, not charity.

To campaign for a more just and moral US foreign policy in our hemisphere.

WHAT IS A PASTORS FOR PEACE CARAVAN?

People coming together to demonstrate and enact an alternative foreign policy, an endeavor of love rooted in social justice.  Caravans travel through Canada and the US collecting aid and giving information about the purpose of the trip.  More than 50 Pastors for Peace Caravans have gone to Mexico, Central America, and Cuba.

WHY TAKE AID TO CUBA?

The message of the Caravan is - end the US trade embargo.

The blockade is a violation of the most fundamental principles of humanity.  It is our duty as citizens and as human beings to oppose this policy and to help, in a small way, to alleviate some of the suffering caused by it.

WHAT KIND OF AID?

Primarily medical supplies and equipment, also educational supplies including computers, tools, bicycles, and cultural supplies, also the school buses we travel in.  Wheelchairs are especially needed.

WHO DISTRIBUTES THE AID?

An ecumenical Distribution Committee made up of pastors and leaders of various denominations and religious organizations in Cuba receives and distributes the aid.

IS THIS LEGAL?

We travel to Cuba as a conscious act of civil disobedience and as a challenge to the US government's cruel and immoral blockade of Cuba, a blockade which uses the denial of food and medicine as a political weapon..  By taking a moral stand and openly challenging the blockade, we urge the US people and government to change this law.  That is why the Pastors for Peace Caravan is important.  Not so much because of the aid we take, though that is significant and needed, but because it is a statement, "I'm sorry that my government is trying to starve and deprive people to force them to give up their efforts to make a better society.  I disagree and I'm trying to change that policy." 

22nd Caravan

Love is Our License

The 22nd Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba - See the Photos from the 2011 Caravan on this blog.

We were about 100 people, mostly from Canada and the US, later to be joined by about 12 Mexican companeros, in 12 buses, traveling routes throughout Canada and the US, visiting 130 cities picking up aid and participants and talking about our mission of solidarity with the Cuban people and defiance of the US law prohibiting travel to Cuba.  Heat, hard work, long hours, and difficulty at the borders were just what we expected, but the special challenge of this Caravan is that Pastors for Peace founder and leader Lucius Walker died shortly after the Caravan last year.  It became very clear that the organization is far more than even the best, most charismatic leader (just as the Cuban nation is) as this year's Caravan delivered 100 tons of aid and masses of human solidarity to the docks of Tampico for shipment to Cuba.

The buses converge in McAllen Texas, where we trained for non-violent civil disobedience; unloaded, packed and invoiced, and reloaded all the aid; formed affinity groups and work teams; repaired buses; and learned about the Pastors for Peace and about Cuba.  Kitchen teams worked about 16 hours a day in shifts and security shifts  we shared round the clock kept us and the buses safe from harm.  (Violence and sabotage from those opposed to the Cuban revolution is a real threat both here and in Cuba.  In my personal experience a bus had its windshield smashed when a church security guard along the route failed to arrive and we were not aware of the problem.)  If you are getting the idea that this is not a tropical vacation, well...

The border crossing from the US to Mexico is a double crossing, for the US border authorities take a great interest in our exit, attempt to inspect our cargos and seize aid.  This year it was 7 computers which were taken.  Then we enter Mexico, which had historically been noted only for meticulous inspection of our boxes and invoices, but where, in the past 2 years, Mexican border authorities, we suppose in cooperation with the US government's wishes, have been harassing the caravan by pretending to regard us as a commercial enterprise rather than as humanitarian aid, and requiring payments.  This year our Mexican comrades helped organize a demonstration inside the office of the  Border Supervisor.  It seems the Caravan always wins by being more determined, more enduring, and louder than the opposition. Onward we went, through Reynosa, and along the highway to Tampico, with a few pauses for bus repair.  We loaded all the aid into shipping containers,  ate dinner at 3AM, slept a few hours and got into a plane which landed us in Havana.

Our first event was a welcome at the Museo de Bellas Artes, where a curator took us through exhibits of Cuban art of the last 5 decades.  The flourishing of culture during the years since the revolution is impressive, as is the fact that there's no "socialist realism" here - content and styles are wildly varied.  Next in Havana is an event which every year moves me to tears: the graduation of the Latin American School of Medicine.  These students, who come from all over the world, including the US, to study medicine for 6 years, with plans to return to their own communities to practice medicine for poor people for the rest of their careers, actually carry out these plans.  In Cuba they learn not only family, community, and disaster medicine, but internationalism, practical idealism, and cooperation.

On Sunday most of us, even the atheists, went to church.  I went to Ebenezer Baptist, part of the Martin Luther King Center in Marianao, a working class section of Havana, where we were received with enormous warmth.  Cubans kiss each other on the cheek in greeting and my cheeks were thoroughly kissed.  The early days of the revolution were anti-religious, in part because the Catholic Church then served as a counter-revolutionary center, even circulating the false rumor of children being taken from their parents to be raised by the state - a rumor which led to the family tragedies of Operation Peter Pan.  Both the church and the revolution have changed; the church no longer works against the Cuban people and there is no government hostility toward religion at all.  It is interesting and unique to Cuba to meet devout evangelicals who are also devout Communists.

We then went in 3 groups to different provinces.  I went to Pinar del Rio, to a rural area where we helped transplant 500 banana trees; played volleyball, chess, soccer, and swam with our Cuban companeros; had interactive meetings with youth groups and Federation of Cuban Women members including an elderly woman who was blind in one eye from a childhood injury for which no medical care was then obtainable, and who was not shy about telling us her life and opinions; learned about the formation of Cuban militias to combat counter-revolutionary violence and met the last surviving member of the first self-organized group; celebrated the 26th of July at a small but lively settlement; toured a cave, and petted a one ton water buffalo - as strong as a tractor and spare parts are not a problem.  This was especially notable as the mechanics in our group were helping the Cubans repair a tractor for which the soviet parts were unobtainable.

Returning to Havana, we visited the Latin American School of Medicine, and the Center for Biotechnology.  The Cuban medical system needs its own article, which I'll try to provide soon.  We went to conferences about youth in education and medicine, about US Cuban relations,  about gender and family issues,  and  about the Cuban economy and planned changes - a  planning process which involved almost the entire adult Cuban population. We saw a performance of children's musical theater and  other musical performances. We went to events honoring Lucius Walker who is a great hero in Cuba as he is to all of us who knew him. We went to Casa Africa for discussion of race and racism and were shown art and religious artifacts.  Again this year we met with relatives of the five Cuban heroes who are imprisoned in the US after they attempted to investigate Miami-based anti-Cuban terrorism.  They are known in the US as the Cuban 5. This is another subject which needs its own article - coming soon.

I missed the last big event - honoring Lucius  Walker - because a Caravanista needed emergency medical care.  Details in the Cuban medical system article!

We flew back to Tampico, rolled through Mexico, and recrossed the border.  After a few hours of  US border official harassment of one Caravanista, a former political prisoner,   we all returned to the US.  Our seized computers were then returned and we turned right around and we walked them back across the international bridge into the arms of our Mexican companeros who will get them to Tampico in time to ship with the rest of the aid.  The Cubans will never give up and neither will we.  A better world is possible.  

Aqui nadie se rinde.  Un mundo mejor es posible.

SEE PHOTOS FROM 2011 CARAVAN ON THIS BLOG.

Zaida

Another reason Cuba is important is because my friend Zaida lives there.  I'd like to perform a virtual introduction.  My friend Zaida Navarro Fernandez is in her early 70s, and her auburn hair is pretty obviously dyed.  She is timid about going outside at night even though she lives in a beautifully safe town called Yaguajay where she knows almost everyone, and she prefers bicycle taxis to the horse-drawn variety because a horse might get startled and run away.  When I say, But Zaida, you used to ride all over the mountains, and in very dangerous circumstances, she answers, "When we're young we're not afraid of anything."

           When Zaida was in her teens she joined the Young Socialists and during the Revolution she was part of the Clandestine Struggle -  "La Clandestina" - taking arms, medicine, money and documents to the fighters in the Sierra under pretext of going visiting friends on other sugar plantations.  They also took word back to the families, "Mami, I'm alive and so is Emilio.  We're in the mountains with the Revolution."  It was desperately dangerous.  Had they been caught they would have been tortured and killed, as indeed happened to many.  Shortly before the triumph of the revolution she was at the Central Narcisa - sugar plantation offices and processing plant - which had been captured by the revolutionary forces and was under attack by the Batista forces.   Many people had taken refuge there. Because of the gunfire people told her "Come, hide in  the clarifier," a huge metal vat, but she was afraid of being trapped inside and didn't get in there.  Then a plane from the Batista forces began to circle for a bombing run.  The pilot made two passes and then dropped the bomb not on the Central but on a field where there were no people.  It made an enormous crater, and would have killed them all.  After the Revolution, the pilot was found and questioned.  He said that he had seen children's clothing on the clothesline strung outside by the people sheltering in the Central and he just couldn't bomb it.  This shows, says Zaida, that you can find good people in every situation of life.  When the Revolution was won she was not quite 21 years old.

         When I write to say I'm coming to Cuba and what should I bring, she writes back that in Cuba they are used to doing without and she doesn't need anything.  When I was there she and her friend Magali were joking about it, "If there's no shampoo, we wash with soap.  If there's no soap we wash with shampoo."  She washes out pots and pans with a rag because pot scrubbers are luxury goods not found in Cuba.  There is water from 9PM to 9AM.  There is electricity.  There is food on the rations though it's not varied or interesting.  She owns her home. She has had the experience of helping create a revolutionary transformation of her country, which I regret not having,  but in terms of consumer goods and food choices, her life is incredibly sparse compared to mine.  A substantial part of this is due to the US economic blockade of Cuba.  I think it is inappropriate and wrong and wicked for your government and mine to try to force my friend Zaida to give up the Revolution she helped make and of which she  is so proud by trying to starve and deprive her. 

         This is why the Pastors for Peace Caravan is important.  Not so much because of the aid we take, though that is significant and needed.  But because it is a clear act of civil disobedience against an immoral law.  It is a statement, " I'm sorry that my government is trying to strangle you to force you to give up your struggle for a better society.  I disagree and I'm trying to change that policy."

         When I asked Zaida and other veterans of the revolution from Yaguajay why they risked so much, they said,  "Things were terrible here before the Revolution.  The plantation owned all the land and they could just kick you out anytime.  There were no schools; there were just a few doctors for the rich  and people died all the time from diseases which could have been cured."  Now what used to be the  military barracks is a hospital which does all kinds of care but also specializes in dialysis.  When we visited a year ago, a doctor there was talking about the problems of the blockade.  His dialysis machines are old, kept going by ingenuity like the famous old cars.  He can't get current medical books.  I sent him a current edition of Handbook of Dialysis.  Well, actually, I didn't send it.  I bought it and had a friend send it from Canada.  What kind of policy do we have toward Cuba which could forbid sending a medical book? Or a pacemaker? or surgical tool for eye operations? or medicine for treatment of leukemia?

         The blockade is deeply immoral and wrong.  It's time to end it.

(And for anyone not interested in morality, it's also stupid.  The Cubans have been through the worst already and they have not given up. There's enough food now but there wasn't in the early 90's and that is precisely when the restrictions of the blockade were tightened.  That the US tried to starve the Cubans into submission is not a figure of speech.  It didn't work.  We might as well trade with them and allow other countries to do so.  We might as well act ethically, since coercion failed...)

Why Cuba is important.

post-peak oil transportation

The dialysis team at the hospital in Yaguajay, with Dr. Amaury Ung Salazar
Importation of modern dialysis machines?  -Forbidden by the US blockade.
Mailing a current copy of Handbook of Dialysis?  -Also blockaded.

Why is Cuba important?

11 million people in a little 3rd world nation with many problems... but with some startling 1st world statistics having to do with education (100% literacy; free education at all levels) and health care (infant mortality lower than that in the US.)

Because Cuba is not doing what the US and all the other countries in the global market dominated by the US are doing, which is maximizing corporate profits and earnings for the wealthy at the expense of everyone else and of the environment.  They have envisioned a more just society and are doing their best to carry this out, with  obvious imperfections and in spite of obstacles, by far the largest of which is the US economic blockade of the country.

Because in trying to create a society in which wealth and opportunity are more equally shared, and in resisting at any cost or sacrifice the coercion of the US, they are an example for Latin America and for the world.

Because the Cuban "better world" concept is internationalist.  They supply doctors to many countries, doctors who are trained to work in impoverished areas and in disaster conditions.  Cuba also educates doctors from  all over the world to return to their own countries and give care to poor communities.  The Latin American School of Medicine has 12,000 students, including some from the US.  This education is free.

Because the whole world owes a debt to Africa and only Cuba has really tried to pay back.

Because Cuba is "post peak oil" and has worked out transportation and agriculture alternative methods which can be used in other countries that need to or wish to reduce their petroleum consumption.  Cuba is sustainable. 

Because there are no homeless people.

Because Cuba has shown that the population won't explode if you reduce infant mortality and prevent disease, even without any coercive population control measures.  All that is needed is to educate and empower women.

Because the Cubans make mistakes and admit them and correct them.  The Cuban revolution was initially hostile to religion and to homosexuality, for example and both these attitudes have been reversed.

Because Cuba is a great place to have your revolution AND dance.

Because the Cubans exemplify Winston Churchill's famous words, "Never give up.  Never, never, never, never, never give up. Never give up.  Never give up."  

ELAM graduation

The first time I saw an ELAM graduation, or more exactly ELAM graduates, I cried.  This had something to do with the fact that I'd had just 2 or 3 hours of sleep the night before but much more because this was the medical education of my dreams and I had missed it.  I'm not complaining about my medical education which was excellent and occurred back when University of California medical schools didn't cost much to attend.  Medical school is a process more than a place and many who start are starry-eyed idealists who want to serve and help people.  By graduation, and certainly by the end of internship, the bloom is off the grape.  The eyes are set in strained hyper-alertness, trying to stay awake, feeling deeply fatigued, exploited, entitled...  Payback time.  The education has focused on fact, which is necessary and may not be sufficient.  Idealism is not nourished although it would be tolerated if a student or house officer managed to maintain it.

         But everyone sounds enthusiastic at graduation, so how can one know that these ELAM students have really been trained to "serve the people?" (that phrase which still has meaning for me even after decades of  Maoist use and abuse) 

Because they do.  ELAM is free: room board, books, lab, tuition.  What is asked in return is that students return to their countries and practice medicine serving a poor and under-served group of patients.  There is no enforcement mechanism; none is even possible.  Yet over 90% of the students do this.  They go to poor and rural areas and care for patients who would not otherwise have a doctor and who cannot pay much.  They have learned to do this in medical school.  They have given up a lot for the opportunity to serve - a six year program spent in a dorm situation far from friends and family and familiar surroundings and comfort.  Certainly there is support, some of it institutional, much of it mutual and cooperative aid among students.  For many students it is in a new language too, which doesn't make reading and comprehension any easier.

After graduation, when the new ELAM trained doctors return home, instead of joining the elite which is where most doctors are located in most societies they dedicate, not just a few years, but their careers to poor people's medicine.  It doesn't just happen.  This is exactly what they learned in school.