The truth about so-called
independent libraries in Cuba
BY DIANA
BARAHONA, Taken from Rebelión
THE United States has been quite skilled at
mobilizing public opinion against Cuba since the
late 1980s. Emboldened by the collapse of the Soviet
Union, no resources have been spared to overthrow
the Revolution that will not surrender 90 miles from
the empire’s coasts.
Some of these efforts have been centered on
creating an artificial opposition movement in Cuba
with the goal of achieving support for it among
liberals and intellectuals. But US librarians,
considered to be potential collaborators of the US
State Department’s destabilization program – the
Report to the President by the Commission for
Assistance to a Free Cuba – are not only refusing to
lend themselves to that game, they are trying to
support their Cuban colleagues in improving
libraries on the island.
The hired opposition is made up of various
components: independent trade unionists, independent
journalists, independent parties and independent
libraries – all paid for and guided by the US
Interests Section (USIS). Their members are all the
same people, given that a single individual may be
an independent news agency and a political party and
at the same time have a library in his or her house.
The scant influence of a US-style "civil society"
was evident at a May 20-21 meeting of the Cuban
Dissidence Congress in Havana, sponsored by the US
Congress with a $6 million subsidy and provided with
a videotaped greeting from President Bush himself.
The event was supposed to bring together 360
dissident organizations, but barely 100 people
attended.
Cuba not only has libraries, it has many: 400 to
be exact, plus another 6,000 in its schools. So, why
has the US State Department created a network of
independent libraries? What exactly is an
independent library?
Rhonda L. Neugebauer and Larry Oberg, both
university librarians, traveled to Cuba in 2000 to
meet with their colleagues and study the library
system. But they also visited some of the so-called
independent libraries in private homes.
What they found were points of contact with
persons from the US Interests Section (USIS) and
others, who visited them periodically to leave
materials and money. They also discovered that for
maintaining shelves stocked with those materials in
their homes, these "librarians" earned a monthly
stipend – "for services rendered," as one of them
put it. They did not find any evidence of anyone
coming to take out a book, and when they asked
neighbors, nobody seemed to know that the libraries
were there.
But the story does not end there. For some years,
Neugebauer has tried to establish an exchange and
support program with the real Cuban libraries, which
not only lack money for books and magazines, but
also for photocopiers, computers, telephones and
technical support for public access to the Internet.
However, she and others are facing an uphill battle
against a campaign being led to persuade the
American Library Association (ALA) and others to
denounce the Cuban government and support the "independent"
librarians. This campaign is headed by a New Yorker
by the name of Robert Kent.
Kent founded an organization in 1999 that he
called Friends of Cuban Libraries. When he traveled
to Cuba in May of that year, Kent contacted Aleida
Godinez, a Cuban intelligence agent disguised as a
dissident. Godinez affirms that Kent introduced
himself as Robert Emmel, and even carried a passport
with that name. He said that he had been sent by
former CIA Agent Frank Calzón, currently executive
director of the Center for a Free Cuba.
Emmel did not have any books with him, and did
not spend any time studying in any library. "He
strongly emphasized the role of the independent
media," Godinez says. "He said absolutely nothing
about the so-called independent libraries. He just
commented to me that he was a librarian." Actually,
Kent had arrived with spying equipment ("a camera,
short-wave radio, a 10-watt transmitter and receiver,
and a Casio watch") and a lot of cash.
But the most disturbing aspect of the librarian’s
visit was that, according to Godinez, Kent asked her
to help – with drawings and photographs – describe
the security features of the home of Carlos Lage
Dávila, vice president of the Council of State.
Godinez says that he gave her $100 to buy film in
order to do so. Understandably, "Emmel" was arrested
and deported for espionage.
As if all that weren’t strange enough, 1999 was
the same year that Robert Ménard, the director of
Reporters Sans Frontières, went to Cuba, and the
behavior of the two men was identical. Both arrived
as friends of Calzón and both carried cash and
electronic equipment and went looking for dissidents.
Both asked questions that had nothing to do with the
alleged purpose of their visits. Ménard asked his
contact, also an undercover agent, if the latter
knew of any discontent within the armed forces. Kent
admits that his many trips to Cuba were sponsored by
Freedom House, a Miami organization financed by the
US State Department.
In order to give an idea of the pressures that
Kent is putting on the US librarians, the following
is an open letter on his Web site sent on June 5 to
the president of the ALA, titled "Time to Take a
Stand:"
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