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Here is a copy of a letter being sent to Congress. It counters some of the deliberate misinformation that Treasury Department is putting out.

Palm Sunday marks day 40 of the Fast for Life. While the dedication of the fasters is unshakable, their physical condition is of growing concern. Pastors for Peace calls on all people who want to end the embargo of Cuba to turn up the pressure this week. Most Senators and Representatives are in their home districts for the Easter break, and we strongly encourage you to meet with them. Encourage them to pressure President Clinton, the Treasury Department and the State Department to release the seized medical computers and end the embargo of Cuba.

The following letter can be used in those meetings. It addresses some of the common lies that are told by the Treasury Department in relation to the Fast for Life and our effort to donate medical computers to Cuban churches.

Dear Representative,

As we enter day 40 of the Fast for Life, we write to inform you about the events leading up to the fast and about the fast itself. Five members of Pastors for Peace started the fast on February 21 after Treasury agents seized 400 medical computers destined for Cuban churches and hospitals. The fast will continue until the medical aid is released. After forty days without food, one faster is no longer able to walk and all five are approaching a very precarious stage. The U.S. government can alleviate this suffering, and avoid the embarrassment of preventing medical aid from reaching Cuban churches, by releasing the seized computers.

You may have spoken with or received correspondence from members of the Treasury Department or other members of the Clinton administration. We have seen some of these letters and spoken with some of you after these phone calls, and we are alarmed by the misinformation being spread by our own government. Given the quantity of letters that have been sent to our supporters all around the country, we are apparently up against a concerted effort, using substantial amounts of our tax dollars, to distort the truth. We are a small group, and the resources and reach of our government are enormous. Yet we have one thing on our side - we know the truth. We were at the events described in the Treasury Department letters, and we know that someone is Treasury is not telling the truth.

On January 31, 1996, about 100 Pastors for Peace volunteers tried to leave the U.S. with 325 medical computers that had been donated by individuals, hospitals and churches in Canada and 19 west coast cities. The computers were destined for an ecumenical group of Cuban churches that includes Ebenezer Baptist Church and the Cuban Council of Churches.

As we approached the Mexican border south of San Diego, we were greeted by members of the San Diego Police Department, who acted professionally and courteously. We were escorted to the border where hundreds of Treasury officials had formed a blockade. Rev. Lucius Walker, ex. director of IFCO-Pastors for Peace, requested a meeting with the U.S. Attorney, Allen Bersin, who was, according to Treasury officials, the person in charge. This meeting was denied. Instead Rev. Walker met with two lower ranking officials from the U.S. Attorney's office and Customs. Their position at the start of negotiations was that we had two choices: turn over the computers or they would be seized.

At the end of three hours of negotiating, their position remained the same. At this point Rev. Walker offered to turn around and go back to San Diego with the computers while negotiations continued. This option was denied. At this point, volunteers began to unload computers from the trucks and tried to carry them across the border on foot. Each volunteer was assaulted by up to five Treasury agents, who forced the volunteers to the ground and ripped the computers out of their hands. In several cases Treasury agents applied choke holds, rendering one volunteer unconscious. He was taken into custody, and several hours later Rev. Walker, who had also been taken into custody, encountered him, only semi-conscious, laying on the floor of the Customs offices. Rev. Walker broke free of his escorts, rushed to the side of the volunteer and demanded that he receive immediate medical attention. Only after this did Treasury officials take him to the hospital, where he spent the night.

Seventeen Pastors for Peace volunteers were taken into custody. Six of them, including both ordained ministers, all of the women and the only Cuban-American, were released immediately. The remaining 11, all males, have never been charged, and the 30 day period for bringing charges is already past. While Treasury officials claim the case is still open, for all intents and purposes it is closed. Our attorneys speculate that video taken by Treasury officials shows only violence perpetrated by Treasury agents against Pastors for Peace volunteers. Our own extensive videos, and those of several television stations, show no violence by Pastors for Peace volunteers, but extensive violence by Treasury agents against those volunteers. And let's remember what those volunteers were doing! They were trying to donate medical aid to churches and hospitals in Cuba. How does this gesture of love warrant the use of physical force and abuse by authorities. A nine minute video is available which graphically demonstrates the violence of Treasury officials against Pastors for Peace volunteers.

One Treasury agent repeatedly screamed "Break their arms! Break their arms!" during the border crossing. Many Pastors for Peace volunteers were bruised and cut. To our knowledge, and despite claims by Treasury officials to the contrary, none of the Treasury agents were injured. Late on the afternoon of the January 31, three Treasury agents apologized to Rev. Walker for the excesses of their fellow agents. They were, frankly, embarrassed by what had happened and considered the actions of a few to be a stain on their professionalism. In various Treasury accounts released over the past two months, the claimed number of injured Treasury officials has grown. However, in discussions between Tom Hansen, director of Pastors for Peace, and the Assistant U.S. Attorney in San Diego, the attorney denied that any Treasury agents had been injured or hospitalized.

Treasury agents seized 325 computers on January 31, including 35 Canadian computers. These computers entered the U.S. at Blaine-WA under an official U.S. Customs bond that states "Cuba" as the country of destination. The Canadians posted a $100 bond that insured that the computers would not remain in the U.S. but would, in fact, be exported to Cuba via Mexico. Customs officials in Blaine sealed each box with official U.S. Customs tape and noted the serial numbers of each computer on the bond. On January 31, during negotiations between U.S. authorities and Rev. Walker, the authorities repeatedly stated that the Canadian computers would be allowed to proceed into Mexico and on to Cuba. However, the Canadian computers were detained along with the U.S. computers. The Canadian participants in the caravan repeatedly contacted U.S. authorities seeking an explanation. After several weeks, the Canadian computers were officially seized, according to a Treasury Department press release, for "undetermined violations of the bond." Pastors for Peace has photographs of the Canadian computers shortly before they were seized showing the U.S. Customs tape still in tact. At this point, two months after the seizure, Treasury officials still cannot tell the Canadians how they violated the bond.

Treasury officials have accused Pastors for Peace of not filing legal papers seeking the return of the seized computers. In fact the legal papers were filed on March 17. They will probably have to be re-filed because, from a technical legal standpoint, they cannot be filed until U.S. Customs publishes a seizure notice in a San Diego legal paper. The publication is supposed to occur within 30 days of the date on the seizure notices (February 13) but as of March 31 those notices still have not been published. As soon as the notices are published we will re-file the papers contesting the seizure.

On at least one point, Treasury officials are clear - Pastors for Peace will not apply for an export license under the terms of the embargo. The U.S. government has no right to control, in any way, the relationship of U.S. churches with churches in other countries. Applying for a license would be a de facto recognition of a policy that uses hunger and disease as weapons against eleven million innocent Cubans, something that we as Christians and people of conscience cannot do.

Since 1992 Pastors for Peace has delivered five humanitarian caravans to Cuban churches with over 1,000 tons of aid, including 500 computers. Pastors for Peace has never applied for or accepted a license, yet all of this aid is in Cuba. Fifteen of the computers were donated by Cuban churches to INFOMED, an on-line medical information network that will eventually connect every hospital and clinic on the island. INFOMED was the ultimate destination of the computers seized in this shipment. The United Nations and the Pan American Health Organization purchased the server computers that form the backbone of the network.

Pastors for Peace started this work in 1992 at the invitation of our counterparts in the Cuban churches. Our first caravan met resistance at the US-Mexico border at Laredo-TX. Treasury agents blocked the border for most of a day, but at the end of the day they allowed us to carry 15 tons of food, medicine, school supplies and Bibles across the border and on to Cuba. Eight months later authorities permitted 150 tons of aid to cross the border, but seized a school bus. Fourteen people on board declared a hunger strike and after 23 days the bus was released. It is now in Havana, used by Ebenezer Baptist Church for their youth and senior citizen programs. In 1994 Treasury officials seized a communication antenna, then returned it to Pastors for Peace. A week later we assembled it an a trailer and took it across the border in full view of Customs officials. Later in 1994 Customs officials permitted 200 tons of aid to cross the border into Canada at Buffalo-NY without so much as opening one box.

In none of these cases did Pastors for Peace apply for a license, yet in all of these cases Treasury officials realized that it was an error to try to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching Cuban churches. We hope that they realize that the seizure of medical supplies is also an error, and that they are released soon. The lives of five fasters, and thousands of Cubans, depends on it. Pastors for Peace calls on members of Congress to take a courageous and moral stand, and demand that the medical aid be released.

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