wfn.org | Agreement Frees Computers for Cuba

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3093 notes).

Note 3093 by UMNS on July 31, 1996 at 16:15 Eastern (2680 characters).

SEARCH:   computers, medical, Cuba, Fassett

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

Contact:  Joretta Purdue                          379(10-71){3093}
          Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722           July 31, 1996

Board obtains agreement to export
computers to Cuba for medical use 

     WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- The United Methodist Board of Church and
Society here announced July 31 that it had reached an agreement
with the U.S. Treasury Department on July 22 to export 374 low-
grade computers to Cuba.
     The computers, currently located in a San Diego storage and
Vermont church facilities, will be distributed to Cuban clinics
and hospitals to support the United Nations' and Pan American
Health Organization's INFOMED network, a medical information
network.
     "The board has never applied for or requested a license from
the Treasury Department for the computers, which were confiscated
by federal agents in January after a caravan of volunteers
attempted to transport the computers through Mexico to Cuba," said
the Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, general secretary of the board.
     He explained that the medical assistance to be transported to
Cuba is an accumulative expression of a large network of church
people in the United States and Canada acting in support of their
"stand of conscience" and in solidarity with their faith
commitments. Some of these people have expressed the belief that
application for a license would condone an embargo they vehemently
oppose.
     Fassett said he expects the computers to be transported by
mid-September across the U.S. border to Tijuana, Mexico, and
immediately flown to Cuba.  The United Methodist board will be
responsible for completing the plan to transport the computers and
for working with the Cuban ecumenical council to set up a network
to monitor the computers' use.
     The board holds title to the computers for a consortium of
religious associations -- the American Baptist Church/USA,
National Ministries; the Episcopal Church; the National Council of
Churches of Christ in the USA; the Progressive National Baptist
Convention; and the United Methodist Church, Boards of Church and
Society and Global Ministries.  
     "The agreement to negotiate for the release and export of the
computers to Cuba is a moral victory in U.S. foreign policy" and a
strong witness of the churches' not allowing political forces "to
prevent them from expressing their Christian care and conscience,"
Fassett said.

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