Title: ELCA'S Anti-Embargo Stance Applauded in Cuba
ELCA NEWS SERVICE - FEATURE ARTICLE

May 15, 1998
98-FE-01-DM

ELCA'S ANTI-EMBARGO STANCE APPLAUDED IN CUBA
by David L. Miller*

     When officials from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)
delivered an anti-embargo resolution to the headquarters of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party in Havana, Cuba, last month, they aligned
themselves with the deep aspirations of the Cuban people and its
government. The 37-year-old embargo continues to wreck the island's economy
and wreak suffering especially upon the most vulnerable Cubans.
     The ELCA officials also witnessed a historical irony: The U.S.
government's trade embargo, intended to bring down the Castro government,
has long been counter-productive, according to Cuban church leaders. The
embargo is used by the government of Fidel Castro as "the El Nino of
excuses," an all-purpose justification for its failure to afford greater
freedom to its people or open its doors to influences outside the country.
     The ELCA resolution was greeted warmly by Silvio Platero Irola,
associate director of the central committee's religious affairs department.
It was delivered by a delegation from the ELCA's Division for Global
Mission, which included the Rev. Will L. Herzfeld, associate director, the
Rev. Rafael Malpica-Padilla, director for Latin American ministries, and
the Rev. Karl H. Reko, director for planning.
     "This is very good news," Irola said after Herzfeld presented the
document. "It affirms the solidarity that exists between our countries and
churches."
     The resolution, which the global mission board adopted unanimously in
March, calls ELCA members "to advocate for an end to the embargo against
Cuba through legislative and administrative measures, including a
relaxation of regulatory provisions" which hinder humanitarian aid. It
also asked ELCA Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson to communicate this to
President Clinton and members of Congress.
     The board's action is consistent with a statement adopted by the 1995
ELCA Churchwide Assembly, which called the church to "work actively toward
the goal of ending the U.S. embargo against Cuba ... [and to work toward]
the establishment of normal relations" between the two countries.
     Cuban Lutherans applauded the board for its firm stance. " The
position of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Cuba has always been to be
on the side of the people," said Miguel Ebanks, the church's bishop. " As
such, we have been against the embargo from the beginning, since it is
inhumane to the people. It hurts them even before they are born. Parents
don't have the proper care or medicine, and children are born sick."
     Despite its size -- only 805 members -- the Cuban Lutheran church has
been a leader among the island's religious groups. The Council of Churches
in Cuba, an ecumenical body, has spoken against the embargo, "but only the
Lutheran church has spoken against it individually," Ebanks said. That
changed in February when Pope John Paul II put the Roman Catholic Church on
record against the embargo and the ravages it inflicts on Cuba.
     Signs of economic stagnation are ubiquitous across the island --
ancient cars; food rationing; crumbling highway, electrical, water,
telephone and sewage systems; an almost total absence of consumer goods;
poorly equipped clinics with acute shortages of everything from X-ray film
and anesthetics to garden-variety antibiotics.
     In 1997 medical investigators from the American Association for World
Health completed a well-documented survey of medical care in Cuba. The
organization concluded that the embargo is "taking a tragic human toll. ...
[It] has closed so many windows that physicians have found it impossible to
obtain lifesaving machines from any source." The AAWH report said that the
1996 Helms-Burton Act, in which the U.S. Congress threatened to punish
non-U.S. corporations doing business in Cuba, multiplied the hardship of
average Cubans.
     The "human toll" of the embargo has faces like that of Maria Jesus
Labrador Sanchez. She lives in three small rooms -- 200 square feet total
-- in La Lisa, a suburb of Havana. Sanchez shares her tiny house with
eight chickens, a sow with two piglets and her 32-year-old daughter who has
Downs syndrome. She survives on her monthly pension -- 42 pesos, about two
dollars -- which she supplements by sewing.
     For Sanchez the deepest suffering of the embargo is revealed by a
framed photo of a young woman. The frame on the wall is draped by a white,
plastic rosary. "That's my oldest daughter," she says, motioning toward
the photo." She died. There was no medicine."
     On the streets of Havana, one encounters many highly critical remarks
of the Castro government's economic policies. But even those most critical
of its poor planning and inefficiency acknowledge that if Cuba is to
prosper and become more free, the embargo must go. On that point, Cubans
seem to agree fully with their government.
     "Eleven million people are affected by this inhumane, cruel and
unchristian embargo," said Irola. "For us, the embargo is a terrible
violation of human rights. We are a socialist country like China or
Vietnam. Yet China receives most-favored nation status for trade. So why
not a better relationship between the U.S. government and our government?
     "You don't know how much we appreciate that you have spoken against
the embargo," Irola concluded after reading the ELCA resolution.
     Cubans and their government are encouraged by gathering international
opposition to the embargo. The United Nations continues to condemn the
U.S. policy, and in March the Clinton administration adopted a policy
allowing direct humanitarian relief flights from the United States.
     Cuban Christian leaders remain skeptical. "I fear the U.S.
government is using humanitarian aid as a way to avoid the larger questions
of opening trade and ending the embargo," said Pablo Oden Marichal
Rodriguez, executive secretary of the Council of Churches in Cuba.
     Rodriguez wondered aloud why the U.S. government doesn't realize that
its policy doesn't serve American interests, an insight also voiced by
United Nations human rights observers early this year. A U.N. report
suggested that Cuban officials use the embargo as the universal explanation
of why there cannot be a free press or liberalized social and economic
policies.
     "The government holds that, as long as there is the hostility of the
North American government, current policies need to continue," Rodriguez
said.
     Cuba's Lutherans pray regularly for the end of that hostility and for
the dawn of a brighter, more hopeful era.
     [David L. Miller is a senior editor for "The Lutheran" magazine]

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