California Insider

A Weblog by
Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub

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June 22, 2003

What they'll do on their summer vacation

According to The Militant, more than 75 Southern California youth, including 18 from Cal State Northridge, are gearing up for a trip to Cuba next month to investigate for themselves the fruits of the island nation’s socialist revolution. But it sounds as if some of them have already made up their minds. “I want to go to Cuba,” says a woman identified as president of the MEChA chapter at the university, “because I have heard a lot about Cuba as a socialist country and I want to see for myself and understand how communism contributes to a better way of life.” Their timing couldn’t be better, as the Cuban government, according to Amnesty International, is in the midst of an unprecedented crackdown on human rights and free thought. Perhaps before they depart, these students can arrange a sit-down with Ramon Humberto Colas Castillo, a recently exiled Cuban dissident and founder of Cuba’s independent library movement. Colas and his wife founded the movement in 1998 and then faced harassment and detention and finally exile, according to the Friends of Cuban Libraries. The librarians are considered subversives in Cuba because they give people access to printed material without the permission of the government. According to Amnesty International, the government in March jailed 75 independent journalists, poets, and human rights activists, including the directors of several independent libraries. Some of the librarians reportedly received sentences of up to 26 years in prison. Amnesty International considers them prisoners of conscience. I wonder if the Cal State University students will pay a call to them between visits to programs through which Cuban youth organizations “aim to win and integrate reinforcements to the active political defense of the revolution.”