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Friends
of Cuban Libraries. June 6, 2003.
NEW YORK, June 5, 2003 (Friends of Cuban Libraries) - In a stinging rebuke
to the American Library Association, one of the nation's foremost defenders of
civil liberties, Nat Hentoff, has criticized the ALA for failing to take action
to defend volunteer librarians in Cuba who are being subjected to a brutal
crackdown.
"It would be astonishing - and shameful," said Hentoff, "if
the American Library Association does not support - and gather support for - the
courageous independent librarians of Cuba, some of whom have been imprisoned by
Castro for very long terms for advocating the very principles of the freedom to
read and think that the American Library Association has so long fought for in
this country."
"This would make the principles of the American Library Association a
bad joke," added the writer, who himself has won the ALA's prestigious
Immroth Memorial Award for Intellectual Freedom. Hentoff is a columnist for the
Village Voice and the author of several books on civil liberties, including "Free
Speech for Me but Not for Thee" and "Living the Bill of Rights."
In March the Cuban government shocked many observers by jailing 75
independent journalists, poets, and human rights activists, including at least
10 directors of independent libraries. Numerous libraries were raided during the
crackdown, resulting in the seizure of thousands of books and circulation
records which reveal the identity of library patrons. Amnesty International has
declared all of the detainees to be prisoners of conscience. Since 1998, when
the independent library movement was founded in an effort to oppose Cuba's harsh
system of censorship, approximately 200 libraries have been established by
volunteers throughout the island to offer public access to reading materials
reflecting all points of view. As confirmed by human rights groups such as
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and International PEN, the volunteer
librarians have been subjected to an ongoing campaign of persecution,
culminating in the recent harsh crackdown which, after one-day trials, imposed
prison sentences of up to 26 years on librarians.
"After years of silence, double-talk and cover-ups by the ALA,"
said Robert Kent, a co-founder of the Friends of Cuban Libraries, a support
group for the independent library movement, "the current vicious attack
gives the ALA no excuse for failing to take action. The heel of the Cuban
government's boot has been stamped on innocent people whose only alleged crime
is to have defended intellectual freedom, which is supposed to be the ALA's most
cherished principle."
"For four years," said Kent, "various ALA Councilors and
committees have refused to acknowledge the validity of Cuba's innovative
movement to create uncensored libraries, but instead have called their directors
agents of the US government or non-librarians because they do not have
university degrees, even though the ALA's own policy manual recognizes the
legitimacy of all libraries."
"Now that the International Federation of Library Associations and
other major human rights groups have condemned President Castro for this latest
outrage," asks Kent, "why are certain leaders of the ALA still trying
to ignore or stifle free debate on this issue?"
The head of Cuba's state-controlled library association, Mr. Eliades Acosta,
who calls the independent librarians "traitors," "criminals"
and "mercenaries," has issued a challenge to debate Kent at any time,
but so far ALA officials have refused to allow a debate on this issue at the
association's upcoming annual convention in Toronto, where Mr. Acosta is
scheduled to take part in a panel discussion on Cuban libraries; ALA officials
have refused to permit any critics of the Cuban government to be members of the
panel discussion.
"The situation really is an outrage and a disgrace to our profession,"
said Kent, whose ad hoc organization, founded in 1999, has submitted an
emergency resolution to the ALA condemning the current wave of repression. "But
hopefully justice will now prevail and the ALA will end its long and deplorable
history of ignoring and covering up the historically unprecedented persecution
of librarians in Cuba."
Several ALA Councilors and other ALA members have in the past condemned
Cuba's independent librarians as "fakes" and a "CIA front group,"
and two signed the May 1st "To the World's Conscience" statement from
Havana, which sought to justify the recent trials and imprisonments. "This
is a scandalous and extremist position that flies in the face of many of the
ALA's core values, especially those found in the Library Bill of Rights and Code
of Ethics," said Walter Skold, a writer and library graduate student from
Maine who drafted the resolution that the Friends of Cuban Libraries want the
ALA to pass at the association's conference in late June.
"I took most of the wording of the draft resolution directly from the
ALA's own policy statements," he said, "so if the ALA Councilors won't
speak out when books are burned and librarians are tossed into the Cuban gulag,
then they would betray the values drilled into us in graduate school."
"If the ALA Councilors remain silent while Cuban librarians rot in jail
and book collections are confiscated," he added, "they will violate
the ALA's principled commitment to defend intellectual freedom, individual
liberty, and the freedom to read as universal human rights."
In response to Nat Hentoff, a spokesperson for the ALA, Judith Krug, said: "Any
time people are attempting to access ideas and information, we have a stake in
assisting them to do so." But Robert Kent noted that Ms. Krug's statement
did not address the issue of why the ALA has failed to take action over the past
four years to oppose the systematic persecution of librarians in Cuba, and he
invited journalists to question the ALA regarding its mishandling of this
important issue. | 
