Cancer patient Starts Race to Demand Freedom for the Cuban Five

SANTI SPIRITUS, Cuba, Aug 13 (acn) Benigno López González, a self-employed
person who suffers from lung cancer, began a march of about 150 kilometers
this Saturday, to demand the immediate release of the five Cuban
antiterrorists unjustly incarcerated in the United States since 1998.

Lopez will start from the Vitoria beach, in the municipality of Yaguajay,
to La Boca resort in Trinidad city, a tour he calls “Our north is south”.
He will have to cover some 10 kilometers a day for 16 days.

“Also I want to dedicate the marathon to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez,
who was operated recently in Cuba,” said Lopez, who in his first day was
accompanied by Yaguajay residents.

In 2003 he was diagnosed with cancer and two years later he began to run,
inspired by Terry Fox, a young Canadian with a prosthesis on his leg that
ran marathons for all who suffered from cancer in the world, as he did.

Benigno promotes a project called Race for Life to motivate patients and
healthy people in pursuit of improving the welfare of mankind.

His greatest desire is that every project spreads all over Cuba, and he
dreams of touring the entire island

With this race I will cross the country through its widest part, but one
day I want to do throughout the archipelago, he told ACN before starting
the coast-to-coast race.