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The Cuban priest Alberto Reyes Pías published the 157th installment of his series "I've Been Thinking" on Facebook, titled "I've Been Thinking About the Long Road to Freedom," in which he urges Cubans not to surrender to what he describes as a dictatorship sustained solely by force and fear.
"We live in a collapsed country, with a stagnant economy and endless blackouts that drain energy from the soul, a country where nothing progresses, nothing flourishes, and people are consumed waiting for a solution that never arrives," wrote the parish priest of Esmeralda, in Camagüey.
The reflection comes at the worst energy moment for Cuba in decades. On Wednesday, the Electric Union reported a generation deficit of nearly 2,000 MW, with a maximum real impact of 2,113 MW. The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, himself admitted that Cuba "absolutely has no fuel, no diesel," only accompanying gas.
Reyes points directly to the core of the political problem: "Only through the use of force, repression, and fear can our dictatorship stand, because the fraud has been exposed, and the lie of a 'Revolution for the people and by the people' can no longer be sustained."
Despite the harsh situation, the priest is optimistic and asserts that sooner or later, the dictatorship will fall.
"The stagnation in which we live prolongs the agony of our people, but at the same time it feeds the enduring desire for freedom, the yearning that drives each one," he expressed.
The Father goes further and exposes the true nature of the revolutionary project: "The Revolution only came to subjugate this people, to create an island of slaves in favor of an elite that does not care about us."
Reyes draws a historical parallel to argue that no dictatorship is eternal, and recalls that Hitler, Eastern European communism, apartheid, Trujillo, Stroessner, Noriega, Somoza, and Duvalier "seemed unshakeable; they all came to believe that the system they had built would live forever, but today they are all history."
In the case of Cuba, he is convinced that although authority can subdue, the illusion has already died in the hearts of the people, who do nothing but pretend in order to survive.
Finally, he makes a direct call to action: "At this moment, silence is not an option; sitting idly by waiting for others to take initiatives is not an option. We have endured too much, and it makes no sense to keep dying while we shout slogans."
The voice of Reyes is not new and has not gone without consequences. In January, State Security summoned him along with the priest Castor José Álvarez Devesa to issue a warning notice. In February, during a visit to Hialeah, Florida, he reported having suffered "harassment, surveillance, and veiled death threats."
The repressive background described by the priest is supported by figures. Prisoners Defenders reported in May a historic record of 1,260 political prisoners in Cuba, including 35 minors and 142 women.
In March, Reyes had already warned that Cuba is "a pressure cooker that could explode at any moment", and in April he asked whether it does not constitute a "crime against humanity" to maintain a system that prevents a dignified life and basic rights.
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