Cuban Librarians Association's Press Release
Miguel O'Pastel
From: "nnoc20012002" <nnoc20...@yahoo.com>
To: <The...@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [TheNNOC] Cuban Librarians Association Press Release
Date: Friday, January 23, 2004 10:14 AM
Cuban Librarians Association's Press Release
Author: Maribel Duarte González
On January 9-14 the American Library Association (ALA) held
their midwinter meeting in San Diego. This is an important
association of information professionals, with which the
Cuban librarians maintain historical ties of friendship and
cooperation.
Among the subjects discussed by ALA-s Council was that of
Cuba, and more specifically, -the subject of information
access in Cuba-.
The growing interest of the world professional community
about subjects connected to the free access to information
is understandable and justified, in a world where the
cover-up and the hiding of truth on behalf of the
information transnationals at the service of neoliberalism
and hegemonic power is of first priority and where millions
of human beings, harshly enough, don't have access to
education, science and culture, a product of poverty,
inequality, and underdevelopment.
Even In the case of the United States, members of ALA, with
the support of their colleagues around the world, live
fighting a tenacious battle against the application of the
repressive "Patriot Act" in the libraries of that country.
The ferocious campaign of misinformation against the
reality of what happens in Cuba, stimulated by the U.S.
government-s agencies charged with total war against the
Revolution, has provoked an understandable interest and an
eagerness for reliable information among people in the
world, among them, ALA-s members.
The Cuban library and information worker-s associations, as
well as the institutions and librarian systems have
frequently welcomed colleagues from all over the world to
the country, among them, the highest authorities of IFLA
(International Federation of Librarian Associations) and
ALA, with whom they maintain in permanent contact,
interchanging information about common topics of interest
and about the reality of the island.
As was appropriately denounced by us, ALA arrived at its
Midwinter meeting in San Diego, under the effects of a
brutal campaign of pressures and blackmail designed to
provoke the end of their traditional relationships of
friendship and collaboration with their Cuban colleagues,
and to force them to join with the hostility of those who
work to subvert the Cuban constitutional order and laws,
encouraging counter-revolutionary subversion under the
supposedly denied vestments of the defense of liberties and
rights.
The April 2003 trials and the convictions against elements,
some of them disguised as "independent libraries", on the
payroll of the U.S. government in their war against the
Cuban people, was the pretext used to increase this
campaign against ALA, utilizing the important media of the
U.S. press in the days prior to the meeting in San Diego.
Despite such pressures that went to ridiculous extremes,
ALA-s Council didn't approve a resolution against Cuba, as
an amendment that was presented at the last minute
attempted to do. In the middle of the debates good sense
prevailed. Over all other considerations, the members of
the Council opted to continue the collaboration with their
Cuban colleagues, to continue sorting out any disagreement
or discrepancy based on mutual respect and the defense of
the ethical principals that we share.
It is in that sprit that the Cuban librarians and
information workers, numbering twelve thousand and who are
represented by the associations and institutions signed on
this press release, consider it necessary to make public
the following position about the document about Cuba that
was approved by ALA-s Council in San Diego:
1) To appreciate the position adopted by ALA-s Council in
San Diego, California dealing with the subject of Cuba and
for not giving in to, faced with the campaign of pressures
of those who are interested in joining this organization to
the hostility against our people.
2) To reaffirm that the real Cuban libraries and
information workers, as well as the vast majority of the
Cuban people, support and defend the goals of the
Revolution, for what they mean for the dignity and the
entire development of all citizens, independent of their
social origin, sex, race, religion, and even, political
opinions.
3) To emphasize that the Revolution, eliminated illiteracy,
created schools, libraries, made possible the free access
to culture, education and science for all Cubans, and put
within the reach of all Cuban families the guarantee of
freedoms and rights that previously had been denied to
them, and that today continue being denied to the great
masses of the dispossessed of the world. These rights and
freedoms are enjoyed by the Cuban people, and must be
demanded with redoubled vigor in the unjust world in which
we live. We make a repeated call to our colleagues of ALA
to join to this struggle.
4) To reiterate that our condemnation that those Cuban
citizens who were subjected to trials and sentenced to
penalties of the loss of freedom based on what is
established with the Protection Law of Cuban independence
and economy (Law 88, March 15, 1999), have not been tried
and convicted for some separate activity other than what
has been reliably shown and punished in Article I of this
law. "to support, facilitate or collaborate with the
objectives of the Helms-Burton law, the blockade and the
economic war against our people, directed to weaken the
internal order, destabilize the country and destroy the
socialist state and independence of Cuba."
5) To ask ALA-s Council for an inquiry and pronouncement
about the violation of the most element of human rights,
among them the right to a fair trial, the right to
information access, and the right to freedom of _expression
for the five Cuban citizens sentenced to life imprisonment
and to the long prison terms of writers and professionals
in jails of the U.S. for struggling against terrorism.
6) To reiterate our deepest condemnation against the
genocidal blockade of the U.S. government against the Cuban
people, causing innumerable sufferings and difficulties for
the life and exercise of our profession, for our freedoms
and rights, and the main obstacle that impedes the free
flow of ideas and interchange among colleagues and citizens
in both countries.
7) To emphasize our condemnation of the repressive
applications of the "Patriot Act" against our colleagues
and the users of U.S. libraries and against any other
measures of this type, under the pretext of the struggle
against terrorism which reduces and represses the
constitutional civil rights and freedoms of the citizens of
that country.
8) To express our will to strengthen, broaden and develop
the relationships of collaboration and friendship with ALA
and the librarians from the U.S., based upon mutual respect
and shared principals, as have been traditional until now.
Council of ASCUBI (Cuban Librarians Association) Council of
SOCICT (Cuban Society of Information Sciences) Leadership
Council of the National Library Jose Martí Leadership
Council of the National System of Information and School
Libraries National Council of the National System of Public
Libraries. Source: BNJM
Source: BNJM
(received via Cubarte weekly bulletin)
Captain Compassion
Tell me Maribel. How many ISPs in Cuba? Cyber Cafes with unlilited WEB
and news access?
Maybe some of you Cuban WEB users can answer these questions.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"I suspect that the problem is not with those that believe that there is a
heaven above but with those that believe that there can be a heaven here
on earth." -- Captain Compassion
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
"Madmen reason rightly from the wrong premisis" -- Locke
"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other
is wrong, but the middle is always evil." -- Ayn Rand
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate -- William of Occam
Joseph R. Darancette
res0...@NOSPAMverizon.net
stephen voss
> 3) To emphasize that the Revolution, eliminated illiteracy,
> created schools, libraries, made possible the free access
> to culture, education and science for all Cubans, and put
> within the reach of all Cuban families the guarantee of
> freedoms and rights that previously had been denied to
> them, and that today continue being denied to the great
> masses of the dispossessed of the world. These rights and
> freedoms are enjoyed by the Cuban people, and must be
> demanded with redoubled vigor in the unjust world in which
> we live. We make a repeated call to our colleagues of ALA
> to join to this struggle.
Since the Cuban peoples are guarunteed freedoms under their
law...and supposedly the only problem with aquiring books is lack
of funds, surely they would accept spanish language copies of the
works of George Orwell, Ayn Rand, John Locke,Robert Heinlein, Universal
Declaration of Human rights...after all the Cuban librarians are
oppressed freedom
fighters...right? ;-)
pedro martori
San José de las Lajas, La Habana, 21 de Enero de 2004
(www.fundacionpatrialibre.org) – En el poblado de Tapaste, en el Municipio
de San José de las Lajas, Provincia La Habana, fueron extraídas por
desconocidos entre una y dos toneladas de pólvora.
Cinco reclutas que custodiaban estos almacenes militares, conocidos como “El
polvorín de tapaste”, se encuentran bajo investigación, así como el jefe de
Caza Municipal, nombrado Gerardo Perales, quien está detenido en una
dependencia de la Contra Inteligencia Militar (CIM) de Ciudad Habana.
Perales se encuentra incomunicado y a su familia se le permitió verlo
solamente por diez minutos bajo la presencia de un oficial.
Al mismo tiempo se conoció que se encontraron de 400 a 500 proyectiles de
cañón, los cuales contenían tierra en vez de pólvora y el robo de 27
baterías de tanques en la Unidad Militar 2721.
Todo esto ha provocado la presencia de numerosos agentes de la seguridad del
estado en esta región y la incertidumbre de la población.
Informó Luis González Medina, Delegado en Funciones del Partido Pro
Derechos Humanos de Cuba, afiliado a la Fundación Andrei Sajarov, en
Provincia La Habana, a Carlos Oyarce Presidente de la Fundación Patria Libre
Carlos Alberto Oyarce
CAMPAÑA CUBANA POR LA LIBERTAD DE PRISIONEROS DE CONCIENCIA
http://www.payolibre.com/presos.htm
"Acuérdate de los presos como si tú también lo estuvieras"
Hebreos 13-3
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pedro martori
ja, ja, are you kidding ?
Let*s ask Doris to give a donation of old books , with those titles to the
cuban libraries.
BTW, the national Cuba Library has several Sections that are ot open to the
general public...ONLY those in the categories of trusted members of the
elite and Comunist
elite party can access those sections where thousands of books are interdict
to the masses.
By now that maotreto : " La Historia me Absolvera" must have been put under
the locks
in that section...for today that document can be of uch more harm to the
dictator and his regime than any denounciation of his continual lies
,violations of rights and betrayals to the cuban people.
"stephen voss" <vos...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:9kmQb.2114$dY6...@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
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