Wednesday, July 4, 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the intersection of Stadium & Providence (right outside the Stadium where folks will be gathering for the fireworks).

Join this effort to stand for independence for the Iraq people and to free all U.S. soldiers from the violent imperialist quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan-- bring them all home and close the US military bases. Details of the sign-holding vigil-demonstration are on the Peaceworks homepage at: http://www.midmopeaceworks.org/. If you are elsewhere, please find a peace action to be part of this Independence Day or some other time very soon. Call 573-875-0539 for more info.

More than 130 Pastors for Peace volunteers from the US, Canada and Europe will challenge the immoral and illegal US blockade and travel restrictions against Cuba at the US - Mexico border on July 17th. They expect to collect 100 tons of humanitarian aid during a two-week caravan that will converge in McAllen, Texas before traveling on to Cuba without US treasury department licenses. They intend to deliver the school buses, educational supplies, medicines, and medical
supplies gathered in communities throughout the US and Canada.

The 18th Friendshipment Caravan will traverse fourteen separate routes across the country stopping in 47 US states and 6 Canadian provinces. Along the way the caravan will be hosted in 125 communities who support a new US Cuba policy based on respect and non-aggression. This year communities have particularly collected aid for Cuban elders.

"As people of faith and conscience, it is our duty to resist and condemn this cruel US policy," declared Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr., Executive Director and founder of IFCO, a 40-year old ecumenical agency. "IFCO/Pastors for Peace rejects this licensing system as both immoral and
illegal. It is immoral because it endangers the lives of millions of Cubans and inflicts suffering on innocent children, as well as adults. It is illegal under international law because it uses medicine and food as weapons of war to force another nation to change its government. Licensing is also unconstitutional because it requires people of faith to submit their acts of conscience and
friendship to government licensing, in violation of our right to freedom of religious expression, political thought, association and travel," continued Walker.

Despite calls for an end to the blockade and travel ban from the UN and the overwhelming majority of nations around the world, and despite growing opposition in Congress to the policies, the Bush Administration has continued to tighten restrictions against Cuba, and is using "homeland security" funds to harass those suspected of travel to the island including the
US citizens who participated in the last three caravans.

"Our non-violent caravan of peace-loving individuals is a challenge to this violation of our rights to express our faith and to travel to Cuba." said Rev. Thomas Smith, President of the Board of Directors of IFCO/Pastors for Peace.

Since 1992 Pastors for Peace has used hunger strikes and mass mobilizations to successfully challenge US government attempts to confiscate vehicles and humanitarian aid bound for Cuba. The ecumenical initiative is a project of IFCO, the Interreligious Foundation for Community
Organization, and has delivered more than 2,500 tons of urgently needed assistance to the Cuban people without seeking a US Treasury license.

Some biographical info on the visiting Caravanistas....

Sabine Casper is a long term Cuba solidarity activist from Hamburg Germany, who this year will be participating in her 10th consecutive caravan. She will speak about how the US blockade impacts on other countries. Unfortunately, we'd don't have more biographical info on her at this
time.

Jim Bouman on himself and what's inspired him to travel to Cuba:

I am a 64 year old retired Juvenile Probation Officer, with a decade of working as a technical writer and editor (when social work got to be too much ;and I burned out). My retirement job is High School Debate Coach and Debate Tournament Judge. I developed an intense interest in the Cuban Revolution as a high school student, being particularly struck be the reporting on Fidel
Castro's visit to New York and the United Nations in 1960. When I read that he had skipped staying at a midtown hotel in favor of lodgings at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, I suspected that this was not going to be a business-as-usual revolution in the Caribbean. My passable, pidgin Spanish I learned from two Marielisto Cubans who settled in our city in 1980. My wife and I sponsored two men--a 22 year old and his step father. They have been lifelong friends, living
in our small city twenty miles west of Milwaukee.

I got interested in IFCO in 2005 and signed on a caravanista for the 2006 trip. I drove a truck
from the midwest to McAllen--eleven stops, then joined the others in the crossing and eight day visit to Cuba.

I immediately connect with the philosophy of Pastors for Peace: community organization, non-violent resistance to unjust laws, carefully undertaken civil disobedience, building people-to-people realtionships, and sharing our time and material goods with those who lead lives of considerable deprivation due to the unjust policies of the US Government vis a vis the Cuban people.