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Criminalizing Librarians:
Is Victor Arroyo a 'Traitor to Cuba'?
Nat Hentoff. The
Village Voice. December 19th. 2003.
Confronted with Section 215 of John Ashcroft's
USA Patriot Act, Marie Bryan-library services
director of the Woodland, California, public
library, considered her options. If the
FBI, conducting an investigation of links
to terrorism, decided to come with a list
of books to be matched with borrowers of
those books, she would have to turn over
the names. And she would be forbidden by
the law to tell anyone, including the press,
of the visitation by the FBI.
In The Sacramento Bee's superb and exemplary
four-part series, "Liberty in the Balance,"
on the scope of the Bush-Ashcroft war on
the Bill of Rights (September 21-24), available
at sacbee.com/projects, Marie Bryan told
users of the library: "You may think,
'This won't happen to me. It will only happen
to terrorists.' The vagueness and broadness
of these measures mean that yes, it can
happen to anybody."
A librarian for 30 years, Bryan told the
newspaper she will not turn over her records
to the FBI regardless of the consequences.
"And I am literally willing to go to
jail."
Because of the nationwide resistance to
Section 215 of the Patriot Act, not only
by librarians but also by a bipartisan coalition
in Congress, the ACLU, and prominent libertarian
conservative organizations, it is very doubtful
that Marie Bryan-and the many other American
librarians shredding borrowers' records
as soon as books are returned-will be behind
bars.
And if there should be even a threat of
retaliation against Marie Bryan, or other
noncooperative members of the 64,000-strong
American Library Association, that national
group, along with many thousands of library
users, will make their outrage plain and
direct to Ashcroft, FBI director Robert
Mueller, and George W. Bush-with national
elections in the offing.
But in Cuba, 51-year-old Victor Rolando
Arroyo-who directed an independent, private
library before being sentenced to 26 years
in prison after Castro's crackdown on dissenters
(as reported in last week's column)-is now
also in solitary confinement after protesting
the treatment of another prisoner.
Arroyo also belongs to the Independent
Cuban Journalists and Writers Union. At
his trial for "undermining national
independence and territorial integrity,"
Arroyo refused a government-appointed defense
lawyer because, he said, the verdict had
been decided in advance. Arroyo also knew
that a lawyer employed by the state is continually
aware that his fealty to Castro will be
judged by his performance for the defendant.
According to the Paris-based Reporters
Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières),
Arroyo "has high blood pressure, headaches,
and diarrhea, and has lost between 15 and
20 kilograms since he was imprisoned."
He is not receiving treatment. At his trial,
closed to foreign journalists, the judge
called Arroyo a "traitor to Cuba"
and a "lackey of the U.S. government."
I have other reports of Cuban independent
librarians who are in Castro's gulag for
so many years that they will likely die
for insisting on Cubans' freedom to read,
and their own right to free thought.
There are members of the directorate of
the American Library Association, and some
rank-and-file members, who agree with the
Castro judge who declared Arroyo a "lackey
of the U.S. government." Their charge
is that the independent librarians are de
facto agents of the American government,
which supplies them with fax machines, funds,
and other resources-including publications-aimed
at overthrowing the Castro regime. Accordingly,
the ALA has refused to condemn Castro's
locking up the independent librarians.
Amnesty International, a persistent critic
and chronicler of United States human rights
abuses at home and around the world, released
a 57-page report on June 3: "Cuba 'Essential
Measures'? Human Rights Crackdown in the
Name of Security." The report answers
the ALA's defenders of Castro.
"The dissidents were not charged under
articles of the [Cuban] Penal Code covering
spying or revelation of secrets concerning
state security (articles 95-97), and the
evidence does not point to such activity.
. . . According to the trial documents available,
the activities on which the prosecutions
were based included:
"Publishing articles or giving interviews,
in U.S.-funded or other media, said to be
critical of economic, social, or human rights
matters in Cuba.
"Communicating with international
human rights organizations . . . distributing
or possessing material, such as radios,
battery chargers, video equipment, or publications,
from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.
Being involved in groups which have not
been officially recognized by the Cuban
authorities and which were accused of being
counter-revolutionary, including, among
others, unofficial trade unions . . . doctors'
and teachers' associations, academic institutes,
press associations, and independent libraries."
The report continues, "Despite the
Cuban government's claims that such acts
threatened national security and therefore
warranted prosecution, the above activities
constitute legitimate exercise of freedoms
of expression, assembly, and association."
(Emphasis added.)
And that is why Amnesty International declares
the independent librarians and the other
65 dissidents sentenced to draconian prison
terms "prisoners of conscience."
In an article in the September 18 Washington
Post, Vaclav Havel (former president of
the Czech Republic), Lech Walesa (former
president of Poland), and Arpad Goncz (former
president of Hungary) declare:
"It is time to put aside transatlantic
disputes about the embargo on Cuba and to
concentrate on direct support for Cuban
dissidents, prisoners of conscience and
their families."
So too should there be support from the
American Library Association and those of
the rest of us who do not romanticize dictators.
A member of the ALA's policy-making governing
council, Mark Rosenzweig, says patronizingly
that "we cannot presume that all countries
are capable of the same level of intellectual
freedom that we have in the U.S. Cuba is
caught in an extremely sharp conflict with
the U.S. . . . I don't think [Cuba] is a
dictatorship. It's a republic."
The internationally respected Cuban journalist
and poet Raúl Rivero disagrees with
Mr. Rosenzweig. Before being put in Castro's
gulag for 20 years, Rivero wrote in the
Argentinean newspaper La Nación,
"No one can make me feel like a criminal,
or an enemy agent, or someone who does not
love his country. . . . I am only a man
who writes. And writes in the country where
he was born, and where his great-grandparents
were born."
And where, at 57, Raúl Rivero is
very likely to die in a prison cell in Castro's
"republic." His wife, Blanca Reyes,
adds: "What they found on him was a
tape recorder, not a grenade."
Copyright © 2003
Village Voice Media, Inc., 36 Cooper Square,
New York, NY 10003 The Village Voice and
Voice are registered trademarks. All rights
reserved.
In
Castro's Gulag: Librarians abandoned by
the American Library Association
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