Area residents defy U.S. embargo of Cuba

Saturday, July 23, 2005
By Susan Elan

HIDALGO, Texas — With the aid of a walker, Irving Wolfe, 92, of Pomona in Rockland County marched across the Texas border into Mexico yesterday in an act of defiance of the 40-year U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba.

Wolfe is the oldest member of a 130-person delegation organized by New York-based Pastors for Peace, a group that is transporting 140 tons of medical equipment, computers and other humanitarian aid to hurricane-battered Cuba. The 16th annual caravan has drawn supporters from 48 states, Canada and several European and Caribbean countries. It includes students from Manhattanville College in Purchase.

At the Hidalgo border crossing on Thursday, U.S. customs officials confiscated the computer equipment carried in the convoy of seven brightly painted school buses, also loaded with incubators, powdered milk, school supplies, bicycle parts and medicine. U.S. officials said they would allow only licensed goods across the border.

So, Wolfe grabbed a walker and led a troop of about 30 carrying crutches and canes across the border on foot.

"The U.S. government said we could not bring vehicles across the border," said Wolfe, who helped raise more than $6,000 in Rockland County for humanitarian aid to Cuba this year. "The wheelchairs and other medical equipment are needed by the elderly and infirm."

Molly Millerwise, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of the Treasury, said the group could speed the process by applying for a humanitarian license that would allow them to travel legally to Cuba.

But as part of its protest, the group composed of clergy, students, housewives and professionals, does not apply for the license, saying it would imply acceptance of the embargo. The group travels annually to Mexico, and then skirts U.S. travel restrictions by flying from there to Cuba.

"The blockade denies food, medicine and basic goods to poor people who need it," said Shane Gasteyer, a student at Manhattanville who is participating in his second caravan to Cuba. "It's wrong on a moral level."

The stalemate ended early yesterday after the delegation consolidated the computers in one bus that stayed behind. The Rev. Lucius Walker, executive director of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization and the leader of Pastors for Peace, has remained behind and is trying to bring political pressure to bear to enable the computers they want to take to Cuban school children to leave the United States.

"The Bush administration says no child should be left behind," said Anthony Flynn, a Manhattanville graduate from Bronxville, who is making his first trip with the caravan, "but they are blocking educational resources that are really needed by children in Cuba."