wfn.org | NCCCUSA Welcomes Cuba Flights

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227
Internet: news@ncccusa.org

NCC3/20/98             FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NCC WELCOMES RESUMPTION OF DIRECT AID FLIGHTS FROM U.S. 
TO CUBA

 NEW YORK, March 20 - The National Council of 
Churches, and especially its humanitarian assistance 
ministry, Church World Service, expressed delight today 
with the Clinton Administration's easing of restrictions 
on direct aid flights from the United States to Cuba and 
of some other sanctions.

 "It is our deepest hope that the reinstatement of 
direct flights will help reunify Cuban families here and 
abroad, as well as guarantee the swift delivery of 
critical food and medicines to a people who have 
suffered mightily under the U.S. embargo," said the Rev. 
Dr. Rodney I. Page, CWS Executive Director.

NCC General Secretary Joan B. Campbell said today 
that the Council's humanitarian assistance to Cuba will 
be "easier to arrange and less costly to accomplish," 
thanks to the decision.

 Over the past six years, the NCC - through its 
Church World Service ministry - has sent 38 shipments of 
food, medicines, medical equipment, school supplies and 
other goods to Cuba totaling nearly 300 tons with a 
market value of more than $7 million.  CWS assistance is 
targetted to the most vulnerable members of Cuban 
society - women, children and the elderly.

 The President's decision also creates simpler and 
faster licensing procedures for exporting medicines and 
medical devices to Cuba, and allows Cuban Americans to 
send money to relatives in Cuba.  "We are pleased to 
know that President Clinton has been listening to the 
growing clamor of the churches, most recently expressed 
by His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, during his visit to 
Cuba and also by the NCC's general secretary," Dr. Page 
said.  Drs. Page and Campbell both have visited Cuba 
during the last several months.

 The NCC has called repeatedly for the 
normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba, 
including a lifting of the U.S. embargo against Cuba.  
Dr. Campbell's most recent letter to President Clinton 
on the subject was sent March 4, 1998.  "We hope and 
pray that today's actions by the U.S. government will 
serve as a stepping stone that will lead Cuba and the 
United States to discuss differences seriously, work 
toward reconciliation and insure the lifting of the U.S. 
embargo and the normalization of relations," Dr. Page 
concluded.

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