Against the law. Pastor fro Peace are importing poison, cellullar panels, etc.

HAVANA (AP) - The Rev. Lucius Walker and other members of the Pastors for Peace delegation left Havana by plane in the pre-dawn hours, bound for Mexico, the Rev. Raul Sanchez of Cuba's Martin Luther King Center said Wednesday. They will try to import Cuban-made rat poison and solar panels, among other products as a challenge to the U.S. trade embargo.

Walker, founder of the nonprofit Pastors for Peace, told reporters last week that he would return home with Cuban solar panels and, most importantly, a rat pesticide called Biorat.

``We are doing a reverse challenge for the first time in history - taking aid from Cuba by way of our caravan to the people of the United States,'' he said.

The four-decade trade restrictions against Cuba bar most sales of American products to the island, as well as Cuban imports to the United States.

After retrieving their vehicles, the group later Wednesday was to drive north across the U.S.-Mexican border, presumably carrying with them the rat poison and other Cuban products.

Suarez said he did not know where on the border or at what time the caravan was scheduled to cross. Walker could not be reached Wednesday.

Walker said the poison, made by biotech firm Labiofam, would be shipped to parts of the United States where ``diseases caused by the burgeoning rat problem create a serious health problem.''

``There is a rat problem in the United States in addition to the one in the White House!'' he said.

Cuba has commercialized Biorat in Latin America, Africa and Asia since 1994. But it has recently come under fire from U.S. health specialists and two European multinationals for allegedly being unsafe, charges rejected by the Cuban company.

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