CUBA: 'Independent librarians' not so independent

June 11, 2003
Issue 

BY KIM BULLIMORE

Among the 75 opponents of the Cuban Revolution arrested and jailed in Cuba in early April, 10 have been described in the Western media as "independent librarians". Their arrest drew swift condemnation from the US government, and also from a number of well-known leftists, including Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.

However, according to a statement issued by the Cuban Library Association, "no Cuban librarian, no graduate of any of our Cuban library schools, nor any librarian or paraprofessional who currently or ever has worked in the Cuban library and information system was detained". The statement pointed out that those arrested were funded by various US government agencies.

While Washington has sought to deny that the "librarians" (and other "dissidents" jailed by the Cuban courts) were in its pay, an examination of a number of reports to the American Library Association (ALA) by librarians who have visited the "independent" libraries, confirms that this is in fact the case.

According to a report complied by Anne Sparenese in 2001 for the ALA's international relations committee, "the 'independent libraries' [in Cuba] may be independent of their own government, but are not independent of the US government".

In her report, Sparenese points out that "independent libraries" are funded and supported by not only the US Interest Section in Havana, but also by US government-financed and -sponsored organisations such as CubaNet and the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami.

In a separate report to the ALA in 2000, Rhonda Neugebauer, who has led a number of visits by delegations of US librarians to private libraries in Cuba, "the individuals who operate these 'libraries' are not independent and they are not librarians. They are uncredentialed and they depend for materials upon donations from sources that oppose the Cuban government."

Larry Oberg, a librarian at Williamette University, in Salem, Oregon, who accompanied Neugebauer on a number of her visits, has also written as series of reports exposing the "independent libraries" as fronts for US-sponsored counter-revolutionary activity.

Writing in the summer 2001 edition of the Information for Social Change journal, Oberg reported that the so-called independent librarians, "depended on gifts of printed materials, fax machines, telephones and video and audio recorders that, in many cases, are delivered directly to their homes by members of the US Interest Section in Havana. Some admitted that they depend upon financial support, and owe allegiance to, their allies in the anti-Castro Cuban community in Miami and elsewhere abroad."

"It became clear to us", Oberg added, "that most of these 'independent' librarians fall into two or three distinct categories: leaders or officers of various dissenting political groups, those attempting to ingratiate themselves with the US Interest Section in order to 'jump the queue' and receive an immigration visa to the United States, and others who were politically engaged evangelical Christians."

After interviewing a number of the "independent" librarians, Neugebauer confirmed that the allegations about the confiscation of books and the harassment and arrest of individuals for owning private book collections, made by anti-Castro groups such as the Friends of Cuban Libraries and CubaNet, were false.

Patricia Wand, head librarian at Washington's American University, pointed out in her report to the ALA on the Association of Caribbean University Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL) 2001 visit to private libraries in Cuba that "all collection owners are self-described 'dissidents', 'counter-revolutionaries' or members of the 'opposition movement' and when asked, confirmed that they had never been detained for owning private libraries".

The reports by Oberg, Neugebauer, Wand and other US and British librarians, also dispelled the myth that certain books have been banned by the Cuban government. Oberg pointed out that while many of "independent" librarians claim that they make available "banned books", many of these allegedly banned books were available in Cuba's state libraries, including copies of books by Cuban dissidents such as Reinaldo Arenas.

According to Wand's report on the 2001 ACURIL visit, "delegates checked card and catalogues for the works of several writers whose books are allegedly banned in Cuba. Several of them were found listed in the catalogues of different libraries and in one case, a reader had checked out the book only a few days earlier."

Neugebauer, who along with Oberg, is about to publish a lengthy report titled Payment for Services Rendered: US-Funded Dissent and the Independent Libraries Project, points out that librarians and other progressive people need to realise that the "so-called independent librarians are the brain-child of the US government, as is much of the anti-Castro opposition in Cuba".

From Green Left Weekly, June 11, 2003.
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