Press Release. The Friends of Cuban Libraries. February 3, 2000.
On February 3, as foreign publishers made travel plans to attend the Havana International Book Fair (February 9-15), the Friends of Cuban Libraries released an Open Letter to the publishers signed by more than thirty authors. The letter, entitled "Book Fair or Carnival of Persecution?,"
urges publishers at the Fair to make protests to government officials against the "scandalous" repression of Cuba's independent librarians, whom the authors describe as "the only librarians in the world who are being subjected to systematic persecution."
In an attempt to establish a civil society in Cuba, the island nation has recently seen the opening of more than thirty independent libraries with the goal of offering access to books that are banned under Cuba's harsh system of censorship. Citing reports and statements by Amnesty
International, the International PEN organization of writers, and the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), the authors of the Open Letter condemn the government's effort to suppress the independent librarians through a campaign of harassment, intimidation, death threats,
police raids, evictions, short-term arrests, and confiscations. "To remain silent on this important matter...," the authors onish the publishers, "would be an act of moral cowardice and would constitute silent for this unprecedented violation of intellectual freedom on
the part of the Cuban government." In addition to public and private protests, the authors also urge the publishers to carry out other acts of solidarity such as visits to the independent librarians in Havana.
Another cause of dismay surrounding the Book Fair is the fact that it will be held in Havana's La Cabana fortress, notorious as the former site of a harsh prison where the Castro istration carried out hundreds of executions. Jorge Valls, one of the authors g the Open Letter,
spent part of his 20-year prison term in La Cabana prison after being convicted of refusing to for the military draft. In his published memoirs, Mr. Valls recalled his grim experience in La Cabana: "Night was no time for rest. On the contrary, that was when the horrors began. At
nine or so the executions would start.... We could hear the prisoner being tied to the pole, his last cries, the command to fire, the volley.... The last sound would be the screech of the night bird coming to peck at the pieces of flesh that still clung to the pole and the wall."
Mr. Valls, now a member of the Friends of Cuban Libraries, says, "A number of the publishers going to the Book Fair have already agreed to carry out actions in of the independent librarians, and we hope others will follow their brave example."
Among the many prominent authors g the Open Letter are Guillermo Cabrera Infante, a winner of Spain's prestigious Cervantes Prize for literature, Heberto Padilla, a renowned poet whose arrest and show trial in 1971 sparked worldwide indignation, Carlos Franqui, a former editor of
the Cuban newspaper "Revolucion," Zoe Valdes, a rising star among the younger generation of Cuban writers, Maria Elena Cruz Varela, a poet who suffered permanent injuries after being attacked during a government-directed mob assault, and the noted Mexican writers Carlos Monsivais and
Jorge Castaneda; the latter is an acclaimed biographer of Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
The Friends of Cuban Libraries, founded in June, 1999, is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit group for the independent librarians. The organization opposes censorship and all other violations of intellectual freedom, as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
regardless of whatever istration may be in office in Cuba. The Friends are funded entirely by their and do not seek or accept contributions from other sources.
: Robert Kent
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