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The 22nd Pastors for Peace Caravan entered Mexican territory after crossing the Pharr-Reynosa border post, where US customs authorities seized seven computers part of a humanitarian aid delivery for Cuba.
Hector Fraginals, a political adviser at the Cuban embassy, told Prensa Latina that the Caravan members protested against the actions by the US custom agents.
According to Helen Bernstein, acting coordinator of the organization, US authorities confiscated seven computers at the border. For Bernstein, the seizure was nothing new. In 1993, a school bus was held by US customs and released after a 23-day hunger strike by 13 caravan members. In 1996, five people fasted for 93 days for the release of hundreds of computers, and last year five computers donated for Cuban schools were also seized.
Victor Vargas, the Pastors for Peace representative in Mexico, said that the caravan was welcomed by various members of the Mexican Movement of Solidarity with Cuba, among other organizations of support to Cuba, at the Reinosa international bridge, in Tamaulipas.
The more than 100 tons of humanitarian aid for Cuba includes medicines, computers, school materials, portable solar panels, and 14 vehicles.
The caravan is scheduled to arrive in the port city of Tampico, on Thursday, where they will board ships to Cuba with over the humanitarian aid collected in 130 US cities. After crossing the US-Mexico border in Pharr-Reynosa, the group of more than 100 activists reaffirmed its defiance of the US blockade of Cuba, saying "love is our license," in memory of the late Rev. Lucius Walker Jr.
The group, which will visit Cuba from July 22 to 30, plans to meet with students, artists, scientists and farmers, and to attend the graduation ceremony that includes 20 young students from the United States who have been studying at the Latin American School of Medicine – ELAM.
