Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, July 21, 2002
US-Cuba Friendship Caravan to Visit Cuba
Members of the 13th US-Cuba Friendship Caravan will arrive in Havana on Saturday, in open defiance of the decades-old blockade imposed on the island countryby Washington.
Members of the 13th US-Cuba Friendship Caravan will arrive in Havana on Saturday, in open defiance of the decades-old blockade imposed on the island countryby Washington.
The group of almost 100 participants, headed by the Baptist pastor Lucius Walker, leader of the Interreligionist Fund of Community Organization (IFCO), will arrive at Havana InternationalAirport in a charter flight from Mexico.
The caravan, organized by Pastors for Peace, a project of the IFCO, will stay in Cuba until July 29, 2003, to carry out an intensive program that includes their participation in the ceremony for the National Rebel Day on July 26.
About 80 tons of medicines and teaching equipment, as well as some ambulances, gathered by the caravan from more than 100 US cities, have been stocked in the Mexican port of Tampico.
These things, which entered Mexico through Texas, will be donated to Cuba's social organizations without the permission of the US Treasure Department.
The caravans began in 1992 as a challenge to the US blockade and a solidarity with the Cuban people.