Berta Mexidor and Ramon Colas aid libraries on the island to foster independent thought.

By Maya Bell
Sentinel Staff Writer

CORAL GABLES -- Berta Mexidor doesn't engage in the debate over visiting Cuba. She says only one thing to Cubans or anyone else contemplating a trip to the island: "If you go, please take a book."

Mexidor, an economist in Cuba, and her husband, Ramón Colás, a psychologist, are deploying books in the fight for freedom.

Their target: the information embargo that Fidel Castro's regime has imposed on the island. "As they say, information is power," Colás said.

From a cluttered office in Coral Gables, Mexidor and Colás, both 42, continue to coordinate the Bibliotecas Independientes de Cuba -- the Independent Libraries of Cuba -- they founded in Cuba in 1998.

They are among the exiles nourishing the internal opposition on the island, but they stand apart from most in that they are dissidents themselves. They came to Miami in December 2001 after being harassed into leaving for founding the library movement, which continues to spread despite the harsh prison terms given last year to 15 people who dared to open libraries in their homes.

As devastating as the crackdown was, Colás said, it held a spotlight on the island, bringing condemnation to the regime and growing support for independent librarians and others in Cuba's pro-democracy movement.

Every month, Colás estimates, between 300 and 400 new volumes make their way to the island. Many are carried one, five, 10 books at a time by visitors from Sweden, Holland, France, Spain and the United States.

They include everything from Marcus Pfister's The Rainbow Fish to former Czech President Vaclav Havel's The Power of the Powerless, which Colás calls the dissident bible.

The pipeline, Mexidor says, is one of the upsides to travel.

"We tell people if you are afraid to go to a dissident's house, leave a book in a taxi, at the airport, in a restaurant," she said. "Give it to whoever."

The couple found the inspiration for the library movement in Fidel Castro's own words.

Mexidor remembers the day well. It was in February 1998, just after Pope John Paul II's visit. She was in the kitchen. Colás was watching the news on state-controlled TV.

Suddenly, Fidel Castro was on the tube, talking about the International Book Fair in Havana. Questioned about censorship, he replied, "In Cuba there are no prohibited books. The only thing we lack is the money to buy books."

Colás saw an opening and seized it.

"He said, 'From now on, we're going to take all the books we have hidden and put them in the living room and open the doors like a library,'?" Mexidor recalled. "I said: 'You're crazy, man.'?"

A month later, the couple inaugurated Cuba's first private library in their apartment in central Cuba. They named it the Felix Varela Independent Library after the exiled priest who championed Cuba's independence from Spain.

Within months, 13 more libraries sprang up in homes across Cuba. Initially, Mexidor said, only other dissidents came, but eventually neighbors and friends ventured forth.

As the movement flourished, harassment against the couple intensified. Colás was arrested several times. His wife was ordered to divorce him. They both lost their jobs. Their house was ransacked and their children ostracized. Eventually, Colás applied for political asylum and reluctantly moved his family to Miami.

By then, more than 150 independent libraries dotted the island. The numbers have fluctuated and dwindled since last year's crackdown, but the couple are confident their movement will survive.

"When you read a book, you open your mind, and when you open your mind, you cannot close it," Mexidor said.

Maya Bell can be reached at mbell@orlandosentinel.com or 305-810-5003.