FOUR "pastors for peace", whose computers for Cuba were confiscated in San Diego, California, by US Treasury agents as they were crossing into Mexico, are in the 42nd day of a hunger strike. Yesterday they set up a small "chapel of refuge" on Capitol Hill, opposite the Houses of Congress.
They have appealed to the US Secretary of the Treasury, Mr Robert Rub in, to release the computers "so that we can go to Cuba and the people of Cuba will be freed of their hunger".
One hunger striker is in a wheelchair, and there is concern about his health, a spokesman for the pastors said. Another was ordered by his doctor to abandon the hunger strike on the 24th day because of a heart condition.
An American nun, mister Dianna Ortiz, a member of the Ursuline Order, who was kidnapped, tortured and raped by the Guatemalan military, is holding a vigil in Lafayette Park, in front of the White House, to demand that President Clinton "declassify all US government information relating to human rights abuses in Guatemala, from 1954 to the present . . . I want the full truth about Guatemala".
On March 29th President Clinton said he would release "all appropriate information" that he ordered investigated last year by the US Intelligence Oversight Board, according to the New York Times. Sister Ortiz wants the full text of the report, not a summary, she said.
The US Justice Department investigated her case last year, and Sister Ortiz wants a copy of that report as well. She won a judgment in a federal court in Massachusetts against a former Guatemalan defence minister, Mr Hector Gramajo, who denies the charge and says he cannot pay fines amounting to $47.5 million assessed by the court.