CUBAN LIBRARIES SOLIDARITY GROUP
PRESS RELEASE

Press Release about the 69th Annual Conference of IFLA
Havana, August 11, 2003

The Cuban Libraries Solidarity Group would like to introduce an excellent press release from the National Library of Cuba. CLSG has just received this from the Biblioteca Nacional Jose Marti and we are circulating it as a service to interested parties. CLSG endorses the contents of the press release. We continue to support Cuban libraries in the face of the propaganda and lies spread by Robert Kent and his so-called Friends of Cuban Libraries. The so-called independent libraries in Cuba are neither independent nor libraries. They are political fronts for counter revolutionary activities funded by the US Interest Section in Havana.

The translation is by Dana Lubow, to whom we are very thankful

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Esteemed colleagues:

Once again I have the honor and pleasure to send to you one of the forceful answers that our Director has sent to Mr. Kent and we hope that this time he has the courage to respond directly and not make those subtle feints with the attempt to escape the body of truth that overwhelms the pseudo liberators idle pursuit.

We want to warn the library community that because we are changing our web address and email, since we are shortening our domain to @bnjm,cu, we will be without email and/or Internet service for some days, it is possible that our silence will be well-exploited by said citizen as proof of acquiescence to some of his diatribes.

We beg you to send this message to those professional lists and/or to friends of the true Cuban librarians that you know.

I hope we find each other again in a very brief time.

With a greeting and always our sincere gratitude for your solidarity.

Lic. Rosa C. Báez
J' Edición y Redacción del
Boletín La Polilla
Biblioteca Nacional José Martí
Ciudad de La Habana, Cuba

Mr. Kent:

I attach the text of the press release released at the end of the 69th
Annual Conference of IFLA, held in Berlin, 1-9 of August. As is usual
in this type of document, it summarizes the subjects covered that had the
greatest impact on the delegates at the event, and the problems that
found consensus among those present.

In this press release it is easy to observe various essential problems
that achieved consensus by the majority of the representative delegates of
more than 133 countries. These problems were:

1) The indignation and condemnation before the barbarous aggression of
the United States government and their allies against the Iraqi people, and
the tragic consequences of this war for the cultural and historic heritage
of humanity, symbolized in the destruction and sacking of the National
Library of that country.

2) The rejection and condemnation of anti-terrorist legislation (eg.
The “Patriot Act”) that impedes the free access to information and the
citizen’s freedom of expression, violating the constitutional rights,
privacy and the ethical codes of librarians.

3) The lack of equal opportunities, illiteracy, exclusion, absence of
social justice, and underdevelopment that two thirds of humanity suffer
under, and that divide humankind much more that the Berlin Wall,
processes aggravated by neoliberal globalization.

You have declared many times that the only subject of your agenda, and
for those called “Friends of Cuban Libraries”, a phantom group that only
you have been able to prove your affiliation, is that of intellectual
freedom.

Like the problems treated in this press release they all belong to this
sphere; since you are a citizen of the country, whose government is
responsible, in a large measure, for the problems tackled in IFLa’s
press release; since you aren’t tired of proclaiming your defense of
principles and rights that can’t be abstract, or circumscribed to some geographic
country or region; since you say you are in a permanent struggle
against the violations of these rights and liberties, consequently, I beg,
before the professional colleagues, before the subscribers of the professional
discussion lists and before the professional organizations, and the
media that I am sending copies of this message, and that pronounces on the
points and problems tackled in IFLA’s press release.

You don’t have an excuse nor is any subterfuge acceptable to be quiet
in the face of this note.

This summons doesn’t accept silence, because it is the opinion of the
world’s librarians facing this serious situation of dangers and real
threats to intellectual freedom, to culture and to life, that worry the
greatest majority of the planet.

This, Mr. Kent, is the only true agenda for anyone who says to champion
intellectual liberty, in our epoch.

Prove to us that you are an honest and ethical librarian, or be quiet
forever.

Eliades Acosta Matos

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