Pro-Cuba group says U.S. seized Canadian computers

HAVANA (Reuters) – A religious group that gathers
humanitarian aid for Cuba urged U.S. authorities on Friday to
release 12 Canadian computers seized at the U.S-Mexican border
under American sanctions against Cuba’s communist government.

The 43 boxes of computer equipment donated by Canadians
were en route to Cuba in an annual caravan organized by the
Pastors for Peace group when they were seized last week by U.S.
border officials at McAllen, Texas.

“These were Canadian computers that were confiscated by
U.S. customs,” said Genevieve Mutschler, a volunteer from the
Canadian province of British Columbia. “They were sent from
Canada in support of Cuba in its struggle against the U.S.
embargo.”

Pastors for Peace, a humanitarian group based in San
Francisco, has delivered 2,500 metric tons of aid to Cuba in 16
years, including medical equipment such as operating tables and
incubators, but also second-hand school buses and computers.

Treasury spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said anyone wanting
to deliver aid to Cuba must apply for a license with the Office
of Foreign Assets Control, the Treasury office that administers
U.S. economic sanctions programs.

Pastors for Peace has defied U.S. trade sanctions enforced
since 1962 against President Fidel Castro’s government by
refusing to request the licenses for travel to Cuba or the
donation of banned equipment such as computers.

Treasury and Commerce Department officials stopped the
caravan of 150 people traveling in 12 vehicles as it was about
to cross into Mexico on July 21 and searched the shipment of
about 120 tons of donations.

“The seizure of the computers by the Commerce Department
shows a new effort by the U.S. government to strengthen the
blockade against Cuba,” the Rev. Tom Smith told reporters.

American members of the solidarity caravan face arrest and
fines of up to $10,000 for violating the U.S. sanctions on Cuba
when they return to the United States over the weekend.

U.S. Reps. Charles Rangel and Jose Serrano, New York
Democrats who oppose the embargo, urged Commerce Secretary
Carlos Gutierrez to permit the release of the computer
equipment.

“If the Bush administration does not wish to help the
people of Cuba, I appeal to them to get out of the way,” Rangel
said in a statement on Wednesday. “Let others prove the
compassion that the administration has often claimed as its
own.”

The White House last year tightened sanctions on Cuba by
restricting visits and cash remittances from relatives living
in the United States, in an effort to undermine what it calls
one of the world’s last “outposts of tyranny.”

Critics of the trade embargo say the sanctions have failed
to achieve democratic change in Cuba and only hurt the Cuban
people, not Castro’s government.