CUBA NEWS
January 15, 2003

Call to conscience: Library group is shamefully silent on Cuba

Union-Tribune Staff Writer. January 9, 2004.

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, January 9, 2004 (Union-Tribune Editorial) - The American Library Association, officially pledged to promote freedom of information and expression, begins its midwinter meeting today in San Diego shamefully silent on just that issue.

Since 1998, bands of courageous Cuban citizens have defied Fidel Castro's dictatorship by creating an independent library movement. In a country where most people can read only what the Cuban state and the Cuban Communist Party approve, the independent library movement offers citizens free access to books featuring alternative ideas.

Ideas like democracy and human rights, for example. Or the works of Cuba's many banned writers and poets. Or volumes on free-market economics. Or works on religious faith. Or biographies of anyone out of favor in the world's remaining communist holdouts. These are books that have been effectively banned in Cuba for decades.

The independent library movement seeks to circumvent that ban by opening book collections in private homes to the Cuban public. By 2003, about 200 of these private, free libraries (typically containing several hundred books each) were operating across Cuba.

That was too much for the aging Castro, still vigorously suppressing any hint of opposition to his 44 years of one-man rule. Among the 75 Cuban dissidents rounded up, summarily tried and sentenced to long prison terms by Castro's regime last April were 10 independent librarians. Their collective sentence for daring to offer Cubans a free choice of library books - 196 years in Cuba's gulag.

One might imagine that the American Library Association would leap to condemn this atrocity against defenseless librarians and the basic human rights of 11 million Cubans. Incredibly, the ALA said nothing.

At its annual meeting last June in Toronto, ALA delegates dithered over inane technicalities. Were Cuban citizens without degrees in library science really librarians? ALA delegates allowed Cuban government representatives to speak for three hours. The sole Cuban dissident who showed up to represent the imprisoned librarians was denied the right to speak.

In the end, moral blinders and the influence of a handful of left-leaning ALA activists sympathetic to the Cuban revolution prevailed. An association supposedly dedicated to freedom of information, inquiry and expression said nothing about Cuba's brutal crackdown against private home libraries and librarians.

The American Library Association has a chance at its San Diego meeting to correct this disgraceful silence. An ALA task force report reportedly will include the option of condemning Castro's suppression of private libraries and expressing solidarity with peaceful librarians now languishing in Cuban prisons on sentences of up to 28 years each.

If the ALA cannot manage that, its moral and political credibility on human rights issues will be irrevocably damaged.

For more details, please refer to the "Recent News: section of our website:
(www.friendsofcubanlibraries.org)

 



PRINTER FRIENDLY

News from Cuba
by e-mail

 



PRENSAS
Independiente
Internacional
Gubernamental
IDIOMAS
Inglés
Francés
Español
SOCIEDAD CIVIL
Cooperativas Agrícolas
Movimiento Sindical
Bibliotecas
DEL LECTOR
Cartas
Opinión
BUSQUEDAS
Archivos
Documentos
Enlaces
CULTURA
Artes Plásticas
El Niño del Pífano
Octavillas sobre La Habana
Fotos de Cuba
CUBANET
Semanario
Quiénes Somos
Informe Anual
Correo Eléctronico

DONATIONS

In Association with Amazon.com
Search:

Keywords:

CUBANET
145 Madeira Ave, Suite 207
Coral Gables, FL 33134
(305) 774-1887

CONTACT
Journalists
Editors
Webmaster