Pastors for Peace Caravan Reaches Cuba

HAVANA TIMES— The 25th Pastors for Peace US-Cuba Friendship Caravan arrived in Havana on Thursday, Cuba’s official media reported.

The welcoming speech at the Jose Marti International Airport was made by Kenia Serrano, president of the Cuban Institute for Friendship among Peoples, who thanked the caravan for their solidarity.

Pastors for Peace Co-Chair Gail Walker expressed her satisfaction over the caravan’s return to Cuba.

She underscored “the importance of having had young people join the 25th Caravan, an experience that will allow them to receive information about Cuba first hand and to share this information after they have returned to their communities.”

Walker explained that before arriving to Cuba, the group travelled to 65 cities in Canada, the United States and Mexico. They collected humanitarian aid for the island and informed people mainly about the US embargo and Cuban Five case.

Though most of the 40 members of the group who visit Cuba this year are from those three countries, she said there are also representatives of Denmark and Germany.

During the ceremony, the life and work of the late reverend Lucius Walker, founder of this movement that opposes the half-century US embargo on Cuba, were remembered.

Caravan members will attend on Saturday the main ceremony for the anniversary of the assault on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes garrisons (July 26, 1953) in Artemisa. The date is the most important festivity on Cuba’s official calendar.

Next week, they will participate in a meeting with the relatives of the Cuban Five, Cuban agents convicted in the United States on charges of espionage. Two of these agents have served their sentences and returned to Cuba. The other three remain in US prisons.