The priestAlberto Reyes, from the diocese of Camagüey and a strong critic of the Cuban regime, stated that for the first timesaw Cuban children sleeping on cardboard.
In an interview granted to thecatholic televisionEWTN Spanish, the parish priest, sensitive to the problems of the most vulnerable people in the country, denounced that the event occurred in the Guantanamo municipality of Maisí.
“When I watch television and they sell me that ideal world where all the children in Cuba are happy and then in Maisí this happens to me, and I see children who don't want to go to school because they have to get up at dawn, because they have to walk five kilometers to go to school... (SIGH) I can't," said the visibly moved man who is also one of the greatest defenders of religious freedoms in the country.
Reyes, who has turned his profile intoFacebook in a forum denouncing the mechanisms of state repression, he stated thatpeople in Cuba are going hungry.
“What hurts me most about this Cuba is the hopelessness. That is to say, people feel that they cannot do anything, people feel that they are tied up, people are very afraid, also because the times that these people have stood up to say 'I want freedom, I want another system', they have been silenced. beatings and jail,” he told the newsEWTN.
On previous occasions, Father Reyeshas described the misery that surrounds the people living on the island, where workers' salaries and retirees' pensions are not enough, and those who do not have help from abroad suffer numerous difficulties.
Referring to theevents of July 11, 2021, and the subsequent repressive acts of the regime, the parish priest affirmed that this was the great voice of the people: “We do not want this system, we do not want this process called the Cuban revolution.”
“That's why the streets are full of police, that's whyeverything that happened on November 15 that the country woke up militarized when these people said 'ah, well we are going to leave peacefully,'" he added. “If you are so sure that this town loves you, why don't you let it express itself publicly. Let us be a free people and let us be a prosperous people, because there is no right to keep this people in the misery they are in and in the lack of horizons in which they are.
Priest Reyes has won friends and enemies for telling the reality that exists in the country. He is the parish priest of Esmeralda, a town in Camagüey, where he has been a witness and denouncer of the misery, sadness and shortcomings of the residents.
That's why,has suffered firsthand the acts of repudiation, a consequence of being a voice in a country where there is a system with experience silencing people.
“An act of repudiation is the lowest thing you can bring a society to, which is calling a group of people to go in front of your house and yell at you, offend you, in some cases throw stones, sticks, etc. , in the 80s they threw eggs, not now because there is not even enough to eat,” declared the priest. “It is an act of hate. “It is a popular act of public hatred, with the sad fact that people who are there emigrate shortly after.”
Reyes has received multiple threats, but he is motivated by the ideal of “doing what I feel I have to do.” Where appropriate, accompany the most humble people, denounce abuses and alleviate the consequences of lack.
In 2023 poverty increased in Cuba, according to a report from the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights. The non-governmental organization revealed that “88% of Cubans live in extreme poverty, 13% more than in 2022.”
Recently the priest Reyes denounced that the rulers were aware of the suffering of the people, but they do not care.
The priestHe strongly criticized the Castro regime in a text shared on his networks in which he proposes to his compatriots how to act after verifying that the government is not interested in the suffering of the people.
At another time, also on his social networks, Reyes said that the State boasts of being generous but in reality it increasingly immerses Cubans in a miserable life.
He published a text in which he explains one of the regime's methods to remain in power: paternalism, whichdescribed as destructive and malevolent.
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