Running a library in Cuba posed risk
When Ramón Colás helped start Bibliotecas Independientes (Independent
Libraries) in Cuba, he risked imprisonment in an effort to help Cubans
read books and magazines and view tapes that had been banned on the
island. By 1999, Cuba had about 18 independent libraries, mostly small
rooms run out of people's homes.
On Aug. 23 of that year, Cuban police raided Colás' home and evicted him
and his wife, Berta Mexidor, and their two children because they were
using their home to run the Felix Varela independent library.
Colás, who was able to leave Cuba in 2001, now lives in Mississippi and
is working on a Cuba race-relations project.
As exiles try to understand what's going on in Cuba today, Colás says
that it's important for the Cuban government ``to demonstrate that Fidel
is alive. . . . They want to keep alive the idea that the leader is there.''
By doing so, the government creates an expectation that the revolution,
with Fidel as its symbol, will live on, he said.
Colás said Cuba's social and political forces, seen from afar, make it
difficult for exiles to see what's ahead. ''Many exiles don't understand
the country's dynamics,'' he said, ``what that dynamic is like in a
totalitarian society.''
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