Cuba Caravan Heads for Mexican Border
HAVANA TIMES — The Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba is gearing up for its final week of crisscrossing the US and Canada en route to a merger at McAllen, Texas and then a crossing into Mexico next weekend.
If all goes well the shipment of around 100 tons of humanitarian aid will then be embarked to Cuba and dozens of the Caravan participants will fly to Havana to be on hand when it arrives.
The aid, collected by the different legs of the caravan, includes school buses, educational supplies, medicines and medical supplies, sports equipment, etc. collected in the US and Canada.
At each stop the caravan participants hold meetings with locals to provide information on the injustice of US policy regarding Cuba.
In protest of the half century US economic blockade on Cuba and the US travel ban that prohibits its citizens to visit the neighboring island without a US Treasury Deptartment license, the caravan members will attempt to deliver their aid without permission “as an act of conscience and civil disobedience.”
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the Pastors for Peace caravans to Cuba.
John, you have failed to factor in the cost of paying bribes to the Cuban funcionaries responsible for ordering the spare parts. Then there are the accountants who maintain the books who have to look the other way and must be taken care of to so. Of course, we can not forget the dock workers who must always receive their share once the parts arrive on the island and then finally, if any of these spare parts can be used in other vehicles, namely the almendares or Cuban taxis, there must be a certain portion of the spare parts released through pilferage by the bus mechanics to the black market. All in all, the 300% markupin costs due to corruption and theft makes what seems like a commonsense solution much less viable.
the pastors should concentrate on buses but with with a japanese engine block in the aisle. the filipinos rebore japanese engines for their buses, trucks and jeepneys. jeepneys use isuzu engine blocks but i don’t know which truck engine blocks are used for the buses. so there are 1,000 chinese bendy buses in cuba with american engines and no spare parts. don’t the chinese have suitable bus engines? a big fishing boat could bring in a few second hand japanese engine blocks every few days and at the same time export and get rid of the american engines unless they can be adapted for japanese or other parts. doesn’t anyone have any imagination in cuba? the parts for engine blocks could be imported by airfreight. that would not be too expensive.