It's shameful that the largest professional group of U.S. librarians would sell out to the Leftist infatuation with Fidel Castro's Cuba. Recent arrests and executions made it crystal clear what this tinhorn regime is all about. According to the ALA, it's OK to have pornography available in libraries in the name of the "freedom to read" and imminent fascism if anyone says otherwise. But they are silent in the face of genuine oppression. Unthinkable.
The American Library Association (ALA) is under fire for inviting Cuban government librarians to its upcoming annual convention, while ignoring colleagues from independent libraries in Cuba who were recently sentenced to prison terms of up to 27 years.Posted by Alan at June 7, 2003 12:09 AM"After years of silence, double talk and coverups by the ALA, the current vicious attack gives the ALA no excuse for failing to take action," said Robert Kent, founder of Friends of Cuban Libraries and a librarian at the New York Public Library.
In contrast to the ALA, most American and European journalist organizations produced resolutions and statements supporting their jailed colleagues. On Tuesday, Amnesty International condemned Cuba's crackdown on dissent and declared all 75 prisoners as "prisoners of conscience." And yesterday the European Union announced that it had decided unanimously to re-evaluate its relations with Cuba.
Mr. Kent, and others, charged that the ALA has been hijacked by several of its board members, whom they say have close ties to Cuba's government. One of the board members, Mark Rosenzweig, is chief librarian of the Reference Center for Marxist Studies, the archive of the Communist Party USA. He is also a leading figure in the ALA's Social Responsibility Round Table, one of the most vocal factions in the ALA supporting the Castro regime.
"If justice is harsh in Cuba, it is because Cuban independence is threatened by the machinations of the hostile U.S. administration, trying to create the conditions for a puppet government to take over," Mr. Rosenzweig wrote in a recent e-mail. Mr. Rosenzweig made his comment in response to an e-mail campaign seeking support for the imprisoned Cuban librarians. He went on to call the imprisoned librarians "pawns," saying they "do not remotely qualify as librarians." Another ALA board member, Ann Sparanese, is a member of the Venceremos Brigade, a radical Marxist group that dates to the 1960s. "They are not librarians," she said of the imprisoned Cubans in a brief telephone interview yesterday.