The over-long beginning of my second paragraph – still over-long – should have read:

“I have a personal quibble in that I had made explicit to Lou that what this ‘Gay Episcopalian activist’
had as my motivation to travel to Cuba… in 2007…was General Convention Resolution A016…”

The first sentence of my third paragraph should have read:

“Most serious was Lou’s omission of the second moral point of Pastors for Peace [the release from US prisons of the 'Cuban Five' antiterrorism investigators].”

My last sentence should have read:

“…President Obama and Attorney General Holder: Please release the “Cuban Five” antiterrorism investigators now!

I have a personal quibble in that I had made explicit to Lou that this “Gay Epicopalian activist” has as my motivation in travel to Cuba on a parish license (St; Alban’s) to represent the parish in 2007 at the diocesan synod and at the consecrartion of Cuba’s new suffragan bishops my motivation was General Convention A016, passed by the House of Bishops and affirmed by the Executive Council. That resolution asks all Episcopalians to (1) pray for reconciliation between the US and Cuba “in the name of the Prince of Peace;” (2) provide moral witness to the US to end the inhumane and unconstitutional economic blockade of Cuba; (3) travel to Cuba in support of Cuba’s Episcopal Church (4) and wrelcome Episcopalians from Cuba visiting the US.

Most seriously was Lou’s omission of the second moral point of Pastors for Peace. Indeed, the organization and all of the more than 100 of us who brought 100 tons of humanitarian aid for Cuban religious congregations, schools and hospitals in this 22nd Friendship since 1983 calls for the lifting of the US economic blockade. Secondly, we’re demanding the immediate release from US prisons of the “Cuban Five” antiterrorism investigators. The Five were sent by the Cuban government to investigate Miami-based plots against the Cuban mainland and Cuban diplomats after one such based terrorist attack killed an Italian tourist in a Havana hotel. (Cuba has lost more than 3,000 people in such attacks and more than 2000 seriously injured.)

The Five successfully infiltrated Miami-based right-wing, anti-Cuba organizations and forwarded the results of their investigation over a period of two years to their superiors. They invited the FBI to Havana to share the intelligence, giving them a file more than a foot thick. The FBI thanked them, said they’d look into it and promptly turned around and arrested the Five for supposed crimes ranging from “espionage” “to conspiracy to commit murder.”

After a Miami trial in 1997, the five have been jailed in top security US prisons since. Their wives and parents have been denied visas.

A habeas corpus petition has been filed after the revelation that several of the Miami journalistrs reporting on their trial and the background of the Five were at the same time also on the CIA payroll. Imagine how that could poison a jury pool in an already anti-Castro Miami on steroids!

With Pastors for Peace I say: President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder: Pease release The “Cuban Five” antiterrorism investigators now!