BY VALERHE JOHNSON
BOSTON - The Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) and Pastors for Peace have called for protests at federal buildings and courthouses across the United States March 22.
The actions were called to support a liquid-diet hunger strike by seven members and supporters of the group and to condemn recent measures by Washington - including the Helms- Burton legislation - tightening the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba and Washington's ban on travel to the island.
The demonstrations will also condemn a grand jury subpoena served on IFCO demanding documents and testimony by its leaders related to two previous humanitarian aid caravans to Cuba the group organized in 1994 and 1995 in violation of the U.S. embargo against that country. A flyer by the July 26 Coalition here says the "subpoena is an attack on the Cuba solidarity movement and an effort to cripple the work of IFCO-Pastors for Peace and others fighting for social justice. This intimidates those who question U.S. foreign policy and creates a witch-hunt type atmosphere."
The Pastors for Peace supporters initiated the "Fast for Life" on February 21 in San Diego, California, after federal agents seized 400 computers the group was trying to take to Cuba through another humanitarian aid caravan. The computers were to be donated to hospitals in Cuba. They were confiscated in San Diego January 31, and in Highgate, Vermont, February 17.
In a related development, a press release by Pastors for Peace denounced a raid by U.S. Treasury Department agents on March 8 who forcibly broke "into a private commercial storage warehouse where some unusable computer parts were being stored, and confiscated them in a middle-of-the-night raid reminiscent of police state tactics."