Writings - Freelance Articles
Caravan to Cuba
Metro Times - February 27, 1994
Gisela Lopez’ eyes narrow as she envisions the plight of family members in her native Cuba.
“Last time I was there was last September, and it was very, very bad,” she says in her near-fluent English. Lopez said her relatives in and around Havana were subsisting on just two meals a day, living on government rations of basic necessities and suffering frequent power outages. Each Cuban received only four eggs a month, she said, and meats like chicken, beef and pork were virtually non-existent. Milk was only provided to children under seven years old. Even a seven-month-old niece, born underweight in Lopez’ opinion due to the mother’s malnutrition, suffered from prickly heat and a nasty rash caused by a shortage of diapers and the lack of electricity for air conditioning.
That’s why the middle-aged Lopez marched at the corner of Jefferson and U.S. Customs Drive Saturday, Feb. 26, in the shadow of Old Mariners’ Church and a statue of George Washington. She was one of about 100 marchers protesting the 33-year-old U.S. embargo against Cuba and applauding a humanitarian caravan driving south in defiance of the ban.
Lopez, her sister Gilda and two other Cuban natives had driven from Chicago that morning to attend the border crossing in Detroit.
“We want to end the blockade as soon as possible because our family is suffering,” she said. Lopez said she also objects to her countrymen being turned into political pawns by the U.S. government.
“It’s very inhumane and cruel, especially to children and old people,” she said. “My people are so friendly and this is so unjust. The children in Cuba don’t know what Communism is.”
The third annual Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba was assembled by Pastors for Peace, a Minneapolis-based organization founded by the Rev. Lucius Walker. One leg of the caravan, which started out from more than a dozen North American cities last week, drove to Detroit from Toronto Sunday on its way to a rendezvous with the others March 6 in Laredo, Texas.
Pastors for Peace has a local ally in its fight against the embargo - the Redford-based Justice for Cuba Coalition. The coalition organized Sunday afternoon’s demonstration and sponsored a Sunday night rally and fund raiser for the caravan drivers at Christ Church, 960 E. Jefferson.
Sunday afternoon’s marchers, carrying signs and shouting slogans like “Cuba Si, Blockade No,” included Detroit City Council President Maryann Mahaffey and U.S. Rep. John Conyers, who said, “I’ve been trying to get some sanity into our policy with Cuba for years.”
Accompanied by cheers and waves from the protesters, 26 cars and a truck crossed the border around 4 p.m. after a cursory examination by U.S. customs officials. The vehicles carried one and a half tons of aid including medical equipment like crutches, walkers and wheelchairs, paper, school supplies and computers.
Some 300 drivers in 96 vehicles from all over the country participated in last year’s caravan, which resulted in the delivery of 100 tons of humanitarian supplies to Cuba by way of Mexican freighter.
The caravan ran into controversy in Laredo last summer when customs officials seized a school bus bound for a Havana church July 29. Caravan members including Walker staged a 23-day hunger strike before they were finally allowed to drive the bus across the border. Thirteen protesters against the seizure, including Detroit caravan driver Beverly Bloedel, were arrested in Houston, Texas during an Aug. 11 demonstration outside the Houston Federal Building.
For more information on the caravan or the Justice for Cuba Coalition, call the coalition at 836-3752.