HAVANA, Cuba - A religious group opposed to the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba arrived on the communist island Wednesday evening ahead of its delivery of 80 tons of humanitarian aid.
The Rev. Lucius Walker, founder of Pastors for Peace, said the 90 people in his group - most of them Americans - planned on returning home with Cuban products to demonstrate its opposition to U.S. restrictions on such imports.
The aid - including medical equipment, tools for bicycle repair, school materials, computers, and food - left the Mexican port of Tampico on a Havana-bound ship on Wednesday and is expected to arrive later this week.
The group that arrived in Havana aboard a commercial flight from Mexico on Wednesday had accompanied the shipment in a caravan of buses across the U.S. border into Mexico.
This is the 12th visit to Cuba by Walker, who founded Pastors for Peace in 1988 to deliver aid from Americans to the Cuban people.
AP-NY-07-04-01 2226EDT
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.