CUBA’s INDEPENDENT LIBRARY MOVEMENT as an INITIATIVE IN HUMAN RIGHTS and INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM
June 16, 2008
A Background Brief in Favor of the Proposed Resolution “CALLING FOR THE
RELEASE OF LIBRARY VOLUNTEERS IMPRISONED IN CUBA " to be considered at the American Library Association Annual Conference of 2008 in Anaheim.
In March 2003 a major crackdown on dissidents swept 75 persons into Cuban courts and on to long prison terms. Some 23 of these persons were involved in operating independent libraries.
ORIGINS
“En Cuba no existen libros prohibidos; lo que faltan son los recursos para adquirirlos” ("There are no banned books in Cuba, only a lack of resources to acquire them"), said Fidel Castro during the Havana International Book Fair in February, 1998 (http://www.aciprensa.com/notic2000/octubre/notic1082.htm). Cuban academics Ramón Colás and Berta Mexidor took these words at face value, opening their own personal library for public use and soliciting book donations from throughout Latin America and the United States, in order to, in Ramón’s words, "offer another cultural opinion … in a country accustomed to reading what its leaders want." The independent libraries would provide "access to books, magazines, documents and other publications to which there is no access in state institutions because they were being considered enemy propaganda and stereotyped as a crime against the powers of the state".
MISSION
From the Bibliotecas Independientes de Cuba (BIC) web site:
“The Independent Libraries are a space for reading, debate, investigation and analysis of diverse materials. These materials extend the cultural horizons of readers and increase the research possibilities for all people. Since its beginnings in 1998, the Independent Libraries have grown and expanded across the island. They offer free information, enrich interpersonal communication, and help citizens to confront the challenges of democracy in Cuba.” (from http://www.bibliocuba.org/english/)
In the words of Berta Mexidor, "These libraries will offer more room in the supposed flexibility granted by Mr. Castro in the areas of reading, debate, research and analysis of diverse materials, that would broaden the cultural and investigative horizons of all the people . . .”
OBJECTIVES
The principal objectives of the independent libraries are to open "a neutral enlightening space, dedicated to literature, debate, the investigation and analysis of diverse materials, and to expand the cultural and investigative horizons of all interested people … to promote reading not as a mere act of receiving understanding, but to form an opinion which is individually arrived at without censorship nor obligation to one belief.
PERSECUTION OF THE INDEPENDENT LIBRARIES
Harassment, intimidation and short-term detentions of persons involved in independent libraries began not long after their establishment. The “Friends of Cuba Libraries” protested to the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), which investigated the situation and issued the following report.
I.F.L.A. REPORT of SEPTEMBER 1999 (see http://www.ifla.org/faife/faife/cubarepo.htm). IFLA conclusions include this language:
Evaluation and actions
A dissident group, encouraged and probably also partly financed by foreign interests, has established some amateur libraries to challenge the current government of Cuba in regard to intellectual freedom. The external support group, the Friends of Cuban Libraries, have claimed that the Government has attempted to intimidate the operators of the libraries. . .
ASCUBI, the national library association, has confirmed the existence of the libraries. It advises that the operators according to Cuban authorities have neither been arrested nor imprisoned, but doesn't address the issue of intimidation. . . IFLA supports the right of any citizen of a country to make available information without fear of intimidation or repression.
The IFLA/FAIFE Chair and Office therefore . . .
• urges the Cuban government to respect the basic principles of Intellectual Freedom and to put an end to the intimidation of the Independent Libraries in Cuba, and furthermore
• urges the Cuban government, the Cuban libraries and librarians to adhere to the principles of freedom of access to information and freedom of expression as defined in the IFLA Statement on Libraries and Intellectual Freedom.
• Urge(s) other concerned parties to send appeals on this matter to the President of Cuba
AMERICAN LIBRARIANS VISIT CUBA
In March 2000 an unofficial delegation of librarians visited Cuba under the leadership of Rhonda Neugebauer. The stated purpose of the delegation was to visit libraries and hold discussions with Cuban librarians regarding philosophy, values, ethics and professional practices. On 10 April 2000, Larry Oberg, a member of the delegation, sent a report to Charles Harmon, the Chair of the American Library Association's Committee on Professional Ethics, describing his view of the delegation's findings.
The Neugebauer visit was not that of an official ALA delegation, nor was the Oberg report given official consideration by ALA. The Oberg report was published online as “Cuba Today, Tomorrow, Forever,” in Information for Social Change, No. 13, available at http://www.libr.org/ISC/articles/13-Oberg.html. Rhonda Neugebauer presented her conclusions in the form of “’Payment for Services Rendered’: US-funded Dissent and the ‘Independent Libraries Project’ in Cuba,” by Rhonda L. Neugebauer, Bibliographer, Latin American Studies University of California, Riverside, a Presentation to the Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies Nov. 8-9, 2002; East Los Angeles College; Panel “Cuba Today,” available at http://www.cubalinda.com/English/Groups/RhondaNeugebauer.htm.
Their fundamental contention was later reiterated in their joint letter published in the July 20, 2001 Chronicle of Higher Education, consigning the independent libraries to the Orwellian memory hole because ”they are fronts ... [sic] for fledgling antigovernment groups in Cuba. They do not represent Cuban librarianship and deserve no mention in its history.” (http://chronicle.com/weekly/v47/i45/45b01805.htm)
FUNDING
British librarian John Pateman of the Cuban Libraries Solidarity Group, the only group known to explicitly endorse the imprisonment of the independent library workers, claims that “both these so-called dissidents and your Friends of Cuban Libraries are both funded by the US government.”
U.S. funding of democracy and human rights initiatives, in dozens of foreign countries through the National Endowment for Democracy and the US Agency for International Development, is a matter of public record. See, for example, http://www.ned.org/grants/grants.html and http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/democracy_and_governance/.
Some excerpts:
FY 2003: $800,000. The program will support one continuing and one new grantee, training Cuban NGO leaders in the management and delivery of social services. Program grantees will also continue to provide Cuba’s growing independent library network with books, pamphlets and magazines on democracy, human rights, and free enterprise; and provide other material support. This will enable the libraries to develop into community centers, offering a wide range of social services.
http://www.usaid.gov/policy/budget/cbj2004/latin_america_caribbean/cuba.pdf
And
Request for Proposals - Cuba
Released October 14, 2004
U.S. Department of State
Material Assistance: Provision of computers, short-wave radios, satellite dishes, decoders, faxes and copying machines by U.S. and third-country NGOs to independent Cuban civil society groups, including independent journalists and other independent civil society actors not specifically referenced in this RFP (e.g., independent economists, doctors, etc.)
Independent Libraries: Programs to re-stock, strengthen and expand the Cuban independent library network and to promote their solidarity with national library associations in Europe and Latin America. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/37169.htm
And
Direct payments to fund Bibliotecas Independientes de Cuba, through the National Endowment for Democracy (http://www.ned.org/grants/05programs/grants-lac05.html and http://www.ned.org/grants/06programs/grants-lac06.html). The relevant entry or FY2005 and FY2006 at that web page reads as follows:
Bibliotecas Independientes de Cuba (Independent Libraries of Cuba) (BIC)
$133,773*
To promote intellectual freedom and debate inside Cuba. BIC will continue to provide material assistance to independent libraries in Cuba and promote international awareness of the library movement. BIC staff will travel to Latin America and Spain to meet with libraries, universities, think tanks, and other organizations to enlist their support for individual libraries and the libraries movement.
* For FY2005 but not for FY2006, “Indicates Department of State Funding Beyond NED's Annual Appropriation”
This federal budget line for the Bibliotecas Independientes de Cuba would not be enough to pay the average salaries plus fringe benefits of 2.5 FTE librarians employed at an average U.S. university library. As of February 2007, the BIC headquarters in Doral, Florida, employed three persons creating videos and soliciting, cataloging and packaging books for shipment to Cuba, but perhaps these BIC people were not full time employees. This federal grant of $133,773 was also intended to cover international travel.
In “following the money,” another important issue is the small amounts of money actually reaching the library workers in Cuba. The allegations of the Cuban courts, as stated in the sentencing documents, are as follows:
Ariel and Guido Sigler Amaya: Received $500 in 2001, $2400 in 2002 and $200 in 2003, from antirevolutionary Angel D’Fana.
Blas Giraldo Reyes Rodriguez: No dollar amount stated, but accused of receiving “dollars and other goods.”
Carmelo Augustin Diaz Fernandez: No funds mentioned.
Edel José García Diaz: Received $40 to $100 via TRANSCARD
Fabio Prieto Llorente: No trial document available.
Felix Navarro Rodriguez and Ivan Hernandez Carrillo: “… through supposed friends and family members … receiving … $3352 between November 2001 and March [2003].”
Fidel Suarez Cruz: No funds mentioned.
Hector Palacios Ruiz: Wrote articles “in exchange for $15 to $100 ... magazines, newspapers and web pages … paid him between $15 and $25.”
José Gabriel Ramon Castillo: Received $7,000 during 2002 and forward.
José Luis Garcia Paneque: Receipt of a bank transfer in the branch office 6411, Las Tunas in the amount of $300.
José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernandez: $2,000 in his possession.
Julio Antonio Valdes Guevara: No funds mentioned.
Leonel de Peralta Almenares: No funds mentioned.
Lester Gonzalez Pentón: No trial document available.
Luis Milan Fernandez: No funds mentioned.
Nelson Alberto Aquiar Ramirez: “remittances received from the United States through the Western Union”
Omar Pernet Hernández: No trial document available.
Pedro Pablo Alvarez Ramos: $1,300 in his possession.
Ricardo Severino Gonzalez Alfonso: No funds mentioned.
Raul Ramon Rivero Castañeda: No dollar amount stated, but accused of receiving “payment for his harmful writings.”
Victor Rolando Arroyo Carmona: Deposited $315.03 (USD) in a Cuban bank. Received 2001 through 2003 a total of $2070.10.
These funds, on the whole, are typical of the usual remittance amounts sent into Cuba by friends and relations outside the country:
“Remittances are an important part of Cuba's wealth; between one-third and two-thirds of the island's 11m inhabitants are believed to receive money from abroad.” -- “Cuba: Spellbound” on page 32 of the January 6, 2007 (vol. 382, no. 8510) print edition of The Economist
and
“According to The Economist Intelligence Unit, an estimated $812 million were sent to Cuba in the form of workers' remittances in 2006 alone.” -- “Cubans risk raids to get satellite TV. Police in Havana to close these illegal windows on the world.” By Eloise Quintanilla, contributor to The Christian Science Monitor, from the July 12, 2007 edition http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0712/p01s04-woam.html.
AWARDS
While the activities and motives of the dissident library workers have been impugned by some in the ALA leadership, human rights groups have bestowed awards upon the independent libraries and their participants:
• Sweden’s Lars Leijonborg Democracy Prize, 2001 to to Berta Mexidor Vazquez and Gisela Delgado Sablón, as representatives of independent libraries in Cuba.
• Human Rights Watch Hellman-Hammet Prize 2002 to Victor Arroyo Carmona, now serving 26 years at the Combinado de Guantánamo Prison.
• PEN Center USA 2003 Freedom to Write prize to Raúl Rivero Castañeda.
• UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize for 2004 to Raúl Rivero, now in exile in Spain.
• People for the American Way The Voice award, May 2004, to Ramón Colás and Berta Mexidor, “For their bravery in establishing a network of independent libraries in private homes throughout Cuba, wherein censored literature was available to the public.” http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=15905#3
• PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award for 2007 was awarded to Normando Hernández González, imprisoned in Kilo 7 Prison in Camagüey.
IFLA/FAIFE CONTINUES TO INVESTIGATE and ISSUE REPORTS
The following italicized section is drawn verbatim from a 19 April 2005 e-mail from IFLA. Note: FAIFE is the an acronym for Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression.
Since the publication of the first IFLA/FAIFE report on Cuba in 1999, a number of statements and media releases, a mission report and an IFLA Council resolution have been issued. A brief description and link to each follows of these follows:
July 2001: 'An IFLA/FAIFE report on free access to information in Cuba. '
This report details a mission to investigate the situation regarding freedom of access to information in Cuba's libraries and follows up on the status regarding the independent libraries. The mission was undertaken by the Secretary General of IFLA and the Director of the IFLA/FAIFE Office.
<http://www.ifla.org/faife/faife/cubareport2001.htm>
August 2001: Resolution adopted by the Council of IFLA in Boston.
Stating its strongly felt concerns, the Council of IFLA urged the US government to eliminate obstacles to access to information and professional interaction imposed by its embargo and any other US Government policies.
Furthermore, IFLA urged the Cuban Government to eliminate obstacles to access to information imposed by its policies.
<http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla67/resol-01.htm>
CRACKDOWN of MARCH 2003
A total of 75 dissidents were rounded up for one-day summary trials and convictions to long prison terms.
WHAT CRIMINAL CHARGES resulted in the Prisoners’ Convictions?
A compilation of the allegations and charges against several main defendants is available at
http://groups.google.com/group/Cuba451Letters/web/charges-in-court-against-the-prisoners. The frequent references to subversion, seditious defamation, distorted information, listening to foreign radio broadcasts, attending meetings of several persons behind closed doors, “Celebrating meetings and reunions in his own residence,” and “questioning the revolutionary process” will be familiar to readers of Kafka, Koestler, and Solzhenitsyn. They show that the main motive in this event was the suppression of dissent.
RESPONSES TO THE CRACKDOWN
Two major 30,000-word reports by leading human rights organizations provide extensive descriptions of the events, contexts and victims of the March 2003 crackdown.
Amnesty International, in its report of 3 June 2003, entitled “Cuba: ‘Essential measures’? Human rights crackdown in the name of security,” (http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR250172003?open&of=ENG-CUB), adopted all 75 dissidents as prisoners of conscience: “Amnesty International does not accept the Cuban government's portrayal of the 75 dissidents arrested as mercenaries or foreign agents. The organisation believes that the activities for which they have been arrested, tried and sentenced fall within the framework of the legitimate exercise of fundamental freedoms of expression, association and assembly. The organisation therefore calls on the Cuban government to order the immediate and unconditional release of all those arrested in the March crackdown as prisoners of conscience.”
The Organization of American States Inter American Commission on Human Rights “REPORT Nº 67/06” of 21 October 2006 (http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/2006eng/CUBA.12476eng.htm) contained the following as the first of its “Recommendations to the State of Cuba”:
1. Order the immediate and unconditional release of the victims in this case, while overturning their convictions inasmuch as they were based on laws that impose unlawful restrictions on their human rights.
WORLDWIDE HUMAN RIGHTS CONSENSUS: Release them!
The worldwide response by human rights groups, leftists, writers and governments is apparent from the list of more than 40 human rights organizations, governmental bodies, political groups – ranging from Freedom House to the French Communist Party – and also 179 prominent American leftists, all of whom have called for the release of the prisoners. A list of the following organizations, with embedded links to their statements, is available at http://groups.google.com/group/Cuba451Letters/web/organizations-calling-for-release-of-the-cuban-library-workers:
Campaign for Peace and Democracy (March 2003)
Liberal International (March 2003)
Christian Democrat International (21 March 2003)
Presidency of the European Union (26 March 2003 and 5 June 2003)
Socialist International (28 March 2003)
French Communist Party (8 April 2003)
International Press Institute (8 April 2003)
World Council of Churches, General Secretary (18 April 2003)
Italian legislature (29 April 2003)
Amnesty International (beginning 3 June 2003, then in 2004, 2005 and 2008)
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (27 June 2003 and 26 January 2007)
International Federation for Human Rights, a.k.a. FIDH: La Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l’Homme (1 July 2003)
German Bundestag Commission of Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid (11 Nov. 2003)
179 American leftists, in a Letter to the Editors of New York Review of Books, vol. L, no. 19 (December 4, 2003), p. 62.
International PEN, chapters of which have also adopted individual prisoners (5 December 2003, campaign of 6-12 September 2004, 21 February 2008, 13 March 2008)
International Society for Human Rights (Germany) (early 2004)
Freedom House, International League for Human Rights, Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, and Human Rights First (17 March 2004)
Human Rights First (reiterated 21 March 2005, 31 March 2007, 21 February 2008 and 18 March 2008)
Human Rights Watch (17 March 2004, reiterated 19 February 2008)
Council of the European Union (14 June 2004 and 17 June 2007)
Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Association of Library and Information Professionals of the Czech Republic (2005 January 18)
Inter American Press Association (22 February 2005)
Committee to Protect Journalists (16 March 2005, 14 March 2007 and 28 February 2008)
National Congress of Delegates of the Polish Librarians Association (5 June 2005)
President of the Estonian Librarians Association (4 August 2005)
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy (12 October 2005)
Library Association of Latvia (28 February 2006)
Pax Christi of the Netherlands (which has also adopted individual prisoners) (18 March 2006)
Association for International Affairs (Czech Republic), People in Need (Czech Republic), and the Pontis Foundation (Slovakia) (26 April 2006).
People In Need (Czechoslovakia) (undated)
Organization of American States, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
(21 October 2006, reiterated in 2007 Annual Report)
English PEN (2 May 2007)
Global Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, being “Representatives of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Commonwealth Press Union, International Association of Broadcasting, International Press Institute, North American Broadcasters Association, World Association of Newspapers, World Press Freedom Committee and Inter American Press Association” (3 December 2007)
Lech Walesa and Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland's leading liberal daily (21 January 2008)
Reporters Without Borders (most recently on18 February 2008)
International Committee for Democracy in Cuba, including former presidents or prime ministers of Albania, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Canada (16 March 2008)
IFLA’s RESPONSE: “deepest concern” is as strong as IFLA has in response to these violations of the freedom to read in Cuba:
8 May 2003: 'Intellectual freedom in Cuba'.
Media release issued on the occasion of the arrest, trial and long prison sentences given to Cuban political dissidents. “The release expresses our deepest concerns at this event,” but contains no call for the release of the prisoners of conscience.
<http://www.ifla.org/V/press/faife-cuba03pr.htm>
12 June 2003: 'IFLA calls on US allow visits and information to and from Cuba'.
Media release expressing IFLA's concerns about the effects of US policies to isolate Cuba and the capacity of Cuban libraries to offer the range of resources needed by the Cuban people. There is no call for release of the prisoners of conscience.
<http://www.ifla.org/V/press/faife120603pr.htm>
16 January 2004: 'Librarians' deep concern over Cuba's move to restrict Internet access'.
Media release on the occasion of a new law that will further restrict Internet access for Cuban citizens. The release expresses deep concern about the continuing violations of the basic human right to freedom of access to information and freedom of expression in Cuba. There is no call for the release of the prisoners of conscience.
<http://www.ifla.org/V/press/cuba160104.htm>
In October 2006, in apparent reaction to the increasing criticism of its tepid reaction to the crackdown and growing traffic of appeals to call for the release of the prisoners of conscience, IFLA created the CUBA-L listserv to divert away from the more broadly read FAIFE-L any discussion of Cuba’s violations of intellectual freedom. Contributions to FAIFE-L about Cuba henceforth have been rejected by the FAIFE-L editor(s), with the exception of contributions by Marta Terry, Chair of ASCUBI, the Cuban Librarians Association. (E-mails of March 11 and April 3, 2008)
A.L.A. UNDERTAKES SOME RESEARCH
At the 2003 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Toronto, the Council discussed the issues inherent in the recent crackdown for 30 minutes in an information session and voted to refer the matter to the International Relations Committee (IRC) and the Intellectual Freedom Committee (IFC) for further review.
The IRC and IFC then created a joint task force that looked at available information on the recent events in Cuba and positions from organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and prepared this report for Council's review and adoption.
The IRC/IFC joint task force failed to respond to an offer of expert testimony from Dr. Holly Ackerman, the Amnesty International USA country specialist for Cuba. Dr. Ackerman is also a librarian and author of a 1996 Ph.D. dissertation that analyzed the motivations for leaving Cuba as held by surviving balseros (rafters) who during 1959-1994 arrived in the USA. (Unfortunately excluded from her research sample were the estimated 100,000 balseros who have perished at sea in their attempts to escape Cuba.)
Neither Dr. Ackerman nor anyone at Amnesty’s International Section in London received any response or inquiry from any ALA representative.
Also available in the USA were the independent libraries movement co-founders, Ramón Colás and Berta Mexidor, who had arrived in political asylum in the USA in December 2001, some 18 months prior to the formation of the ALA Task Force.
The co-founders of the independent library movement are unaware of any attempt by any ALA IRC or IFC representative to contact them to learn their side of the story for the ALA Task Force.
During ALA’s 2003 research process, Task Force members who ultimately recommended in their report that Cuba "safeguard" Internet and world wide web access in Cuba apparently missed at least ten easily located news reports during 2001-2004 about the increasing strangulation of Internet access. These news reports indicated that very little Internet access remained to be “safeguarded.” (See the citations of these news reports at http://groups.google.com/group/Cuba451Letters/web/alas-poor-research-into-the-cuban-freedom-to-read-situation.)
IFLA seemed to be more aware than the ALA regarding Cuba’s increasing strangulation of Internet access, because IFLA at least “urge[d] the Cuban Government to eliminate all obstacles to access to the Internet imposed by its policies,” in a media release of 16 January 2004. http://www.ifla.org/V/press/cuba160104.htm
A.L.A. RESPONSE: “deep concern”
At the 2004 ALA Midwinter Meeting in San Diego, the International Relations Committee and Intellectual Freedom Committee's Report on Cuba (2003-2004 ALA CD#18.1) was received and approved by the ALA Council. This Report is available at http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=News&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=53695.
The strongest ALA statement about the prisoners of conscience is the following:
“ALA joins IFLA in its deep concern over the arrest and long prison terms of political dissidents in Cuba in spring 2003 and urges the Cuban Government to respect, defend and promote the basic human rights defined in Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
At the 14 January 2004 Council meeting. “Councilor Karen Schneider moved and Council DEFEATED, A motion to add the following words: ‘.... and calls for their immediate release. ALA ....’ to ALA CD#18.1, International Relations Committee and Intellectual Freedom Committee's Report on Cuba.” (Emphasis is in the original minutes; see http://www.ala.org/ala/ourassociation/governanceofficeb/council/councilminutes/mw2004.cfm#Council_III.) Of some 75 Council members present, Ms. Schneider estimated that only five Council members raised a hand in support of her amendment.
APPEALS TO A.L.A.
A direct appeal of 4 June 2003 to the ALA International Relations Office from Gisela Delgado Sablón, the Havana leader of Bibliotecas Independientes de Cuba, pleading for solidarity, was carefully pondered by ALA officials for no less than thirteen months, after which, instead of joining the global human rights consensus calling for release of the prisoners, the ALA responded by rejecting her appeal in a letter of 27 July 2004 over the signature of the ALA International Relations Committee Chair. On that same day he concluded an accompanying letter to the Cuban Foreign Minister, with these words: “We thank you very much for your attention and assistance to ensure the health and welfare of these detained individuals,” again affirming the objective ALA position that, although the human rights of these individuals may have been violated, they do not deserve freedom. (This exchange of correspondence is available at http://groups.google.com/group/Cuba451Letters/web/ala-rejects-direct-appeal-for-solidarity-with-prisoners-of-conscience?msg=sap.)
ALA keynote speakers who have addressed ALA members at ALA meetings, urging calls for the freedom of the prisoners, include Ray Bradbury (2005), Andrei Codrescu (2006), Madeleine Albright (2006), and Anthony Lewis (2008).
OTHER UNFAVORABLE COMMENTARY
ALA has been frequently criticized in the press for its refusal to call for the freedom of Cuba’s library volunteers. Here is a representative list. A Nexus search would certainly yield more citations.
The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec), June 21, 2003 Saturday Final Edition, Pg. A30
Arizona Republic, December 28, 2004
National Post (Canada), June 20, 2003 National Edition, Pg. A1
National Review, July 22, 2003
The New York Times, June 28, 2003, Section B; Page 7, February 22, 2005
San Diego Union-Tribune, September 23, 2003 Pg. B-6; also January 9 and 15, 2004
Andrew Sullivan’s blog
Austin Statesman (Texas), December 27, 2004.
The Californian, January 21, 2004.
SuburbanChicagoNewsOnline.com, July 23, 2005
CQ Weekly, March 13, 2006, p. 638
El Mercurio (Chile) Feb. 24, 2005
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, March 28, 2005
Le Monde (Paris) July 24, 2003
Los Angeles Times, June 29, 2003
Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2003 and May 10, 2004
New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 25, 2006
New York Sun, January 27, 2004
Orlando Sentinel, June 24, 2004
Providence Journal, December 24, 2003
St. Paul Pioneer Press, September 30, 2007
San Antonio Express-News, Web Posted: January 26, 2006; also February 1, 2006
Washington Times, January 16, 2004
and perhaps a dozen columns by Nat Hentoff, recipient of the ALA Immroth Memorial Award for Intellectual Freedom.
OTHER A.L.A. REPONSES to APPEALS and CRITICISM include the REFUSAL TO POST NEWS of BOOK BURNING.
Since 1990, the ALA has adopted resolutions protesting the destruction of libraries and restrictions on access to libraries in the following lands:
Resolution on the Destruction of Palestinian Libraries, Archives, and Other Cultural Institutions, June 19, 2002
Resolution on Libraries and Cultural Resources In Iraq, Adopted by the Council of the American Library Association, Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Toronto, Canada: “Cultural institutions such as libraries and museums are vital resources in the establishment of a civil society . . .”
Resolution on the National and University Library of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Adopted by the Council of the American Library Association, Wednesday, July 10, 1996
Resolution on the Reconstruction of Libraries in Yugoslavia and Kosovo, Resolution Adopted by ALA Council June 29, 1999
Resolution on Libraries in Romania, Adopted by the Council of the American Library Association, January 9, 1990, in Chicago, Illinois
Resolution on Access to Information by Cuba’s Libraries, Adopted by the Council of the American Library Association, July 20, 2001:
WHEREAS Cuban librarians support open selection and access policies for their library materials, therefore be it
RESOLVED THAT
The American Library Association urge the U.S. government to share information materials widely in Cuba, especially with Cuba’s libraries, and not just with individuals and independent nongovernmental organizations . . .
Despite ALA’s stated opposition to “Libricide,” the Director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom has consistently declined requests to post news of the court-ordered incineration or destruction of the entire contents of at least six independent libraries in Cuba (see http://groups.google.com/group/Cuba451Letters/web/books-ordered-burned-or-destroyed-by-cuban-courts-april-2003) on the ALA OIF “Book Burning in the 21st Century” web page. This web page has posted news of book burning in Canada, Sri Lanka, India (Kashmir), Indonesia, the Republic of Georgia, and Vietnam, as well as the USA.
Among the entire collection seized from the Juan Gualberto Gómez Library (Branch II, Matanzas) and consigned by the court to “incineración” (burning) were 81 copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the book Martín Luther King: Contra todas las exclusiones (Bilbao: Desclee de Brouwer, 1995). The Juan Gualberto Gómez Library was operated by Ivan Hernandez Carrillo. The April 4, 2003 trial document containing the incineration order and sentencing Ivan Hernandez Carrillo to 25 years in prison is available at http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-matanzas-2e.cfm. Among the charges were “Receiving literature [that was] debated and distributed among its members….solicited…. different persons….in their group not to participate in activities of social and mass organization organized by our country…. Celebrating meetings and reunions in his own residence… went to the park Libertad de Colón …. opening up a national flag….and remained silent for one minute. Visit[ed] the Interest Section of the United States of America [to] receive subversive documentation. He received …. pamphlets and literature…scathing and aggressive writings….the authors of such documents are of ideological ideals and virulent antirevolutionary positions such as….Carlos Alberto Montaner and Vaclac Havel.”
Responding to a request to post news of these court-ordered burnings of “subversive” books in Cuba, the ALA OIF Director stated in a letter of 6 February 2007 that she “cannot rely solely upon machine-translated documents provided by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana to a website funded by grants from the U.S. government.”
In response, the sentencing documents posted at the “Rule of Law and Cuba” web site are available in the original Spanish, which begs the question: is there no one at ALA headquarters or in its greater intellectual freedom leadership who reads Spanish?
As for the authenticity of the Cuban court documents, they have been verified by the Program Director of the Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights in his letter of September 26, 2007, which was copied to Dr. Krug. The Center has posted the sentencing documents on its “Rule of Law and Cuba” web site putting the primary documentation online precisely for the purpose of answering claims of disbelief.
Any connection with federal grant funds has been denied by the FSU CAHR Program Director, in his letter of September 26, 2007, which was copied to Dr. Krug. His letter is available at http://groups.google.com/group/Cuba451Letters/web/verification-of-sentencing-documents-by-florida-state-university.
The ALA OIF Director asked in her letter of 6 February 2007, “If you can locate independent third party reports that verify the facts in this case, please share them with me.” The ALA OIF had been previously informed of the comprehensive independent third party reports by Amnesty International and the OAS mentioned above, each of which total more than 30,000 words and each of which contain more than 70 direct references to the court sentencing documents.
The ALA OIF Director has also been informed of the June 22, 2007 sworn notarized statement of Frank Hernandez-Trujillo, Executive-Director of the Grupo de Apoyo a la Democracia, that he “received copies of the trials from the dissidents group in Cuba with the help of a foreign delegation in Havana other than USINT,” (http://groups.google.com/group/Cuba451Letters/web/verification-of-sentencing-documents-by-frank-hernandez-trujillo). Mr. Hernandez-Trujillo included in this mailing additional sworn notarized statements by one of the prisoners now in the USA and by the wife of another prisoner, testifying to the authenticity of their trial documents posted by the FSU CAHR. These statements were also forwarded to the ALA OIF.
Mr. Hernandez-Trujillo prefaced these statements with his e-mail of June 20, 2007 in which he wrote that “Whoever doubts their authenticity is free to contact the political prisoner's families and perhaps travel to Cuba and look at the originals. We will be happy to provide them with an OFAC license to that effect.” This statement was also shared with the ALA OIF.
In this month of June 2008, the ALA OIF has been informed of yet another independent third party report that mentions Cuba’s book burning several times, based upon his personal research in Cuba: “The Battle of Ideas: Searching for the opposition in post-Fidel Cuba,” by Patrick Symmes, Harper’s Magazine, May 2008, pages 50-62.
It is hoped that these cumulative “independent third party reports” will soon result in a posting of Cuba’s 21st century book burning on the ALA OIF “Book Burning in the 21st Century” web site. Don Wood of the ALA OIF has advised that the Burned Books web site is intended for high school students to use for research material. Certainly our students should be interested that recent book burnings have included the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a biography of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and civil rights martyr Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as the web page’s six entries about the fictional Harry Potter.
WHY is ALA RELUCTANT TO DEFEND the FREEDOM TO READ and the FREEDOM OF READERS?
There appear to be at least eight possible reasons.
1. The argument that seems to receive the greatest sympathy in ALA is that the US Interests Section in Havana has supplied the independent libraries with books, small amounts of money, and sometimes telefacsimile machines, radios, computers or phones. It is argued that that the activities of the U.S. Interests Section (USIS) in Havana amount to interference in the political affairs of another nation -- interference intended to destabilize the government, an activity that the U.S. outlaws within its own borders.
In response, the Havana USIS admits providing information technology in the form of radio receivers, computers, phones or telefacsimile machines, but denies providing money to the independent libraries. In the sentencing documents available online at http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/sentencing-documents.html, the Cuban courts presented no evidence of direct cash payments or other fund transfers from USIS personnel.
The sentencing documents do not contain allegations by the Cuban prosecutors and judges of a common political party thread connecting the convicted persons and their non-governmental libraries. The Bibliotecas Independientes de Cuba has no political platform and has made no statements regarding electoral reform, emigration, health care, education, the environment, church-state relations, energy, abortion, travel, transportation, economics or other social, political or diplomatic issues.
U.S. libraries have benefited from foreign assistance such as the German Marshall Fund and endowments from foreign governments to U.S. colleges and universities for study centers and even library collections, serving legitimate foreign interests in expanding American readers' knowledge of their nations and cultures. For example, the government of Turkey has donated $3 million to Georgetown University for an Institute for Turkish Studies, and $750,000 to Princeton University for the Ataturk Chair of Turkish Studies. (David Holthouse, “State of Denial: a network of U.S. scholars and lobbyists is working to support Turkey’s denial of the Armenian genocide,” in Intelligence Report [Southern Poverty Law Center], Issue 130, Summer 2008), pages 48-57)
Regarding destabilization, any government would be extremely unstable if it could be shaken to the core by the acts of collecting, lending, reading and discussing books and magazines.
U.S. support for the human rights of expression and assembly have included support for the independent Solidarity labor union movement in Poland (also supported by the leftist AFL-CIO labor union leadership), support for anti-apartheid measures directed at the Union of South Africa (also supported by the NAACP), and support for human rights defenders in Argentina during its “dirty war” against leftist elements – support provided by the liberal administration of President Jimmy Carter. It is strange that the support for the human rights initiative in Cuba that is most relevant to librarians is not supported by the allegedly left wing American Library Association.
The U.S. is not alone in its support for the independent library movement in Cuba, which also has received significant support and contributions from Sweden, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Spain. The municipal governments of Strasbourg and Paris sponsor independent sister libraries in Cuba.
2. Objections to the U.S. embargo of trade with Cuba form a second rationale to keep the prisoners in prison. Opponents of a prisoner release argue that when the hostile embargo is lifted, then the prisoners will be freed. This has also been stated as, "Any shortages of children's - or any other books - have been created by the 40 year illegal blockade of Cuba by the U.S. This blockade applies to food and medicine as well as books." ("John Pateman" <john.pateman@merton.gov.uk> on 17.06.99)
To the contrary, the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba exempts books, newspapers, magazines, films, music recordings and other informational materials.
The embargo also does not apply to food, as shown by the increase in U.S. agricultural sales to Cuba having grown in 2007 to half a billion dollars per annum.
Despite the embargo, “The Cuban government does business with some 3,000 companies from 176 countries” and "despite the embargo, 100 companies from the United States participated in the [autumn 2007] trade fair.” (See “Cuba's embargoed democracy” in the Jamaica Gleaner of November 11, 2007, at http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20071111/focus/focus4.html).
Despite the embargo, “Cuba’s commercial exchange continues on an upward trend with agreements with companies from 167 nations, said Foreign Trade Minister Raul de la Nuez on Monday at the Expocaribe 2008 International Fair in Santiago de Cuba.” (Source: “Cuba’s Commerce Increases Steadily, Says Foreign Trade Minister,” posted 3 June 2008 at
http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/2008/0603intercambiocomercial.htm)
Making the freedom to read dependent upon ending the embargo undermines ALA’s principled intellectual freedom policies by establishing the primacy of an ALA international trade policy, which ALA does not need. The ALA freedom to read policy – if actually honored in practice – would suffice.
3. A third possible reason for ALA to refrain from criticizing the Cuban government for violating the freedom to read is that Cuba has virtually eliminated illiteracy and has a very well developed infrastructure of libraries, offering books to all of the people in Cuba in urban and rural areas.
However, the number of libraries in a country has no necessary relation to whether library collections are censored or confiscated, or whether workers and volunteers in libraries are harassed, threatened, or arrested. Libraries and literacy programs, along with free health care and education programs, as well as rationed food and restrictions on Internet access, are standard features of life in Cuba and also in U.S. federal prisons. Indeed, there may well be more freedom to read in U.S. prisons than in Cuba.
4. “Does ALA need a foreign policy?” ask some persons who oppose solidarity with the dissident prisoners of conscience.
While ALA has no formally stated “foreign policy,” ALA has issued numerous resolutions on intellectual freedom problems in several foreign lands. Since 1990, ALA has adopted resolutions concerning Romania, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Vietnam, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia and Kosovo, Cuba, Palestine (twice) and Iraq.
The ALA also has adopted numerous policies regarding intellectual freedom and the freedom to reading global contexts.
ALA Policies also address the global situation. See the “ALA Policies on Intellectual Freedom and International Relations” at
http://www.ala.org/ala/ourassociation/governingdocs/policymanual/policymanual.htm, especially policies 53.1.12 (“throughout the world”), 53.7 Destruction of Libraries, 58.1.1 (“throughout the world”), 58.1.2 (“worldwide”), and 58.1.3 (“worldwide”), 58.3 Abridgment of the Rights of Freedom of Foreign Nationals (referencing South Africa), 58.4 (“regardless of frontiers”), and 58.4.1 Human Rights and Freedom of Expression.
5. The alleged “Regime Change” agenda.
How could independent libraries change the regime? The court documents report neither any weapons found, nor any plans for or guides to assassination, arson, sabotage or riot, nor explosive, chemical or biological agents, nor any instructions on how to obtain, make or use any terrorist device. The only dangerous materials uncovered were information and ideas. Is the regime to be overthrown by a fusillade of open books?
The Bibliotecas Independientes de Cuba organization has no political agenda other than, in the words of its co-founder Berta Mexidor, "to promote reading not as a mere act of receiving understanding, but to form an opinion which is individually arrived at without censorship nor obligation to one belief . . . This project brings together sectors of the population traditionally not involved with opposition activities. In this sense, the primarily civic nature of the project needs to be pointed out . . . Born of an initiative of Cuban civil society, this project represents a new form of resistance facing the monolithic will of the government. It constitutes a clear demonstration of the popular will to create neutral spaces, without ideologies, where one can define the cultural formation of a person. Therefore, the project of Independent Libraries can be considered a Non-profit and NGO.”
The objective of the independent libraries is not the overthrow of the regime by persons armed with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. The objective is to achieve a space intellectually free from government domination – just what many US librarians want to achieve in the face of the Bush administration’s faith-based politicization of science, for example. That entails a change in the regime’s behavior, not a change of the regime.
6. A desire to avoid any similarity to Republicans and Cuban-Americans.
ALA President Michael Gorman revealed what is likely the real reason when, in the question and answer session following Andrei Codrescu’s remarks at the 22 January 2006 Presidential Keynote event at the ALA Midwinter Conference in San Antonio, Texas, he said “. . . the people in prison – these people should not be in prison. They should be freed immediately. They should never have been sentenced, sent to prison for the activities connected with any kind of dissemination of information or literature. But we do not want to get involved with the kind of politics which grows up around the Cuban exile community, the Republican Party, the Cuba – and the Cuban government.”
(The DVD of this program is available at http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=191267-1&tID=4&highlight=Andrei%Codrescu.)
7. This issue is too complex for a simple call to release the prisoners.
The issues of imprisoning library workers and destroying their collections can only be viewed as too complex if ALA’s unwritten policy on foreign trade, combined with its desire to remain at arm’s length from Cuban-Americans and the GOP, overrules (i.e., renders “complex”) its prior and explicitly stated intellectual freedom policies.
It’s too complex if you believe that there are situations that justify the double-decade imprisonment of their collectors and lenders and the burning of books because of their “subversive” content.
8. Finally, timidity of too many ALA Council members.
"I was scared I'd be yelled at" and "I didn't want to appear to be on the wrong team," were some of the reasons offered to Karen Schneider by Council members explaining their votes after the defeat of her January 2004 amendment calling for the release of the prisoners.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE, FIVE YEARS AFTER the ARRESTS, SUMMARY TRIALS and INCINERATIONS?
It is now time for ALA Council members to overcome their fears, and to join the human rights “team” that composed of the general membership at large, which supports the freedom to read. ALA Council members should not be intimidated by the vocal minority that blocks support for the advocacy of intellectual freedom in Cuba. The ALA Council should honor ALA’s long held and explicitly stated principles of intellectual freedom and the freedom to read “worldwide,” “throughout the world” and “regardless of frontiers.”
MEMBERSHIP SUPPORT FOR THE FREEDOM TO READ IN CUBA
Council members can take courage from good evidence that the membership is much more supportive of the freedom to read than the vocal opponents of the imprisoned library volunteers.
First, the positive audience reactions to Steve Marquardt’s presentations on this topic at five state library association meetings in Nebraska, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming (at the Mountain Plains Library Association), and in response to a poster session at the Amnesty International USA Midwest Regional Conference – venues at which the audience reactions have been characterized by bewilderment at ALA’s failure to defend the freedom to read in Cuba by defending the freedom of those who serve its readers. After presentations of both sides of the controversy, more than 120 librarians and others have signed on to a list of letter writers who at least four times each year write to Cuban officials, urging release of the prisoners of conscience.
Second, consider the audience applause for Andrei Codrescu in his January 22, 2006 keynote address challenge to ALA to take a stand in favor of the prisoners. (The DVD of this program is available at http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=191267-1&tID=4&highlight=Andrei%Codrescu.)
Third, candidates for ALA Council have been polled in 2006, 2007 and 2008, on the question of whether they would support an ALA Council resolution calling for release of the library prisoners. Responding candidates favored an ALA call for release of the prisoners by 16 to 4 in 2006, 17 to one in 2007, and 27 to zero in 2008.
Fourth, the “AL Direct” online poll of 25 January 2006 asked, “Should ALA Council pass a resolution condemning the Cuban government for its imprisonment of dissident ‘independent librarians’?” In the largest returns (609 in number, with more than 110 comments) of any AL Direct poll, the results were 24% “No” and 76% “Yes.” (See http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/aldirecta/2006pollresults/2006polls.cfm#jan25.)
Fifth, the positive audience response at the March 2008 PLA conference, when listening to Talk Table comments by the co-founders of the Bibliotecas Independientes de Cuba. The editor of American Libraries was present for this entire Talk Table, but the news of this historical first-ever appearance of, and first-person account by, the movement’s co-founders went unreported in both AL’s summary of the conference and in Peter McDonald’s article in the June/July 2008 issue – an article assigned to him by the editor who had attended the Talk Table. Perhaps the audience reaction was too positive to be reported in our Association’s fair and balanced flagship magazine?
WILL THE A.L.A. LEADERSHIP JOIN with THE MEMBERSHIP in SUPPORTING the FREEDOM TO READ?
With membership sentiment favoring the freedom of the prisoners as a positive expression honoring our profession’s commitment to the freedom to read, it should not take a great deal of courage and daring for the ALA Council to stand in solidarity with:
• Persons imprisoned for expressing their rights to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers, in accordance with Article 19 of the UDHR;
• ALA’s own general membership’s understanding of the freedom to read;
• ALA’s own principles and policies; and
• The overwhelming consensus of the global human rights community.
Please support the Resolution
“CALLING FOR THE RELEASE OF LIBRARY VOLUNTEERS IMPRISONED IN CUBA”
Sanford (Sandy) Berman
4400 Morningside Road
Edina, Minnesota 55416-5043
ALA Honorary Member
Honeywell Project Anniversary Award for Peace and Justice, 1988
ALA Equality Award, 1989
Carey McWilliams Award (Multicultural Review), 1994
Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award, 1996
Steve Marquardt, Ph.D.
9383 123rd Avenue SE
Lake Lillian, Minnesota 56253-4700
cubaliblib@gmail.com
ALA Member since 1974
South Dakota State University
Dean of Libraries Emeritus
Amnesty International Legislative Coordinator for Minnesota
Dorothy & Eugene T. Butler Jr. Human Rights Award, 2006
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