Spock, US pastors in Havana
HAVANA - Renowned US paediatrician Doctor Benjamin Spock presented US$82,000 in medicines to the Cuban Red Cross on the morning of February 1. The shipment was donated by people in 41 US states. The Cuban Red Cross will pass the donations on to a Havana dental clinic and the William Soler Paediatric Hospital in the Cuban capital.
Commented Spock: "We who oppose the US blockade of Cuba have to make more noise". Taking his own advice he said he plans to speak up to the Clinton administration when he returns home, advocating an end to the embargo.
A note he prepared for the new president reads in part: "Dear Bill, I hope you will respond to the UN rebuke for our illegal 30-year embargo on Cuba by at least promising to investigate its history. It's injuring hundreds of thousands of children."
On the same day, a delegation sponsored by the US religious organisation Pastors for Peace brought medicines and medical equipment collected in eight US cities. Speaking with the press at the Martin Luther King, Jr, Memorial Centre in the Cuban capital, the group's executive director, Reverend Lucius Walker, expressed his organisation's commitment to ending the US economic blockade.
He said: "I'm very much committed to continuing to work diligently towards [improved relations], and that's why we have mounted an aggressive program for this year with seven delegations and one caravan".
Reverend Walker pointed out that this year's caravan will leave the United States on July 16, probably bringing as much as 100 tons of material aid.
The current delegation did not apply for a Treasury Department licence as part of its challenge to the blockade.
[From Radio Havana/Pegasus.]