Reply #89: Your first source, managed by Ramón Miró from Washington D.C. [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

refers to the comical "independent libraries." I'm linking a letter written by an American librarian who's completely aware of that U.S.-supported system, and all the attendant propaganda. This is an excerpt:

Law 88, often cited in the sentencing documents of the people in question, provides stiff prison terms for those guilty of supporting United States policy against Cuba through collaboration with the Helms Burton Act. It defines a number of activities – committed in conjunction with, or for the benefit of, US policy against Cuba – as criminal. Some of these might well raise a red flag for librarians, such as distribution or reproduction of subversive materials *from* the U.S. government that would facilitate U.S. economic aggression. But as American citizens (and sensible people) we need to acknowledge that if these laws were passed in *reaction* to U.S. policy – policy and laws conducted in our names – then our first responsibility is surely to address our own government’s complicity in what happened this spring in Cuba. Amnesty International devotes quite a bit of ink to explaining the relationship of these Cuban laws to US policy. (http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR250172003) Amnesty has declined to take up the cause of condemning Cuban in the United Nations for its “human rights record” because it sees it as a politicized issue led by the United States (see their FAQ page on Cuba.)

The Helms-Burton law appropriates millions of dollars of US taxpayers’ money for the overthrow of the Cuban government. They call it “transition to democracy,” with the stated purpose of what we now euphemistically describe as “regime change.” The law and its implementation through USAID and others include the funding of dissident groups in Cuba – although the right-wing Cuban organizations in South Florida take home the lion’s share first. The Helms Burton Law is a multi-million dollar industry in South Florida-- read the USAID report. (http://www.USAID.gov/regions/lac/cu) It is also is the trough which feeds a U.S. funded and organized dissident movement in Cuba, some of whom are now in prison. These funds are increasing every year.

Recently a U.S. tour group visited Cuban on a “people-to-people” license (travel now outlawed by the Bush administration, by the way) and they asked a member of Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the arrests of the dissidents. She put it in a nutshell when she answered: ”’ got money from a foreign government – yours — to overthrow our system. Your government wouldn’t tolerate such a thing’ Neither would hers.” (http://www.alternet.org/story.html?storyID=17371)

And it’s true, the U.S. wouldn’t and it doesn’t. There are several US statutes which criminalize the injection of foreign intervention and foreign funding into our political process. Do you believe that foreign governments can freely pour money into our political parties, or that organizations here can receive money from enemy nations for the purpose of “regime change” here in the States? They can’t. Have you ever heard of the “Trading with the Enemy” Statute of the United States? Why can’t you see that Cuba has the same rights as a sovereign nation and that *their* enemy is the U.S? In the same article cited above, a Cuban “man on the street” had this response when asked his view about the human rights violations against the dissidents: “We’ll be glad to talk to people from your country about our human rights record once you get your foot off our necks.”
(snip/...)

http://www.pitt.edu/~ttwiss/irtf/cuba.letter4.html

There are quite a few D.U.'ers here who also know what purpose the U.S.-sponsored "independent libraries" play.