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The Cuban priest Alberto Reyes Pías published this Friday the 159th installment of his weekly column "I've Been Thinking", in which he reflects on the possibility of a U.S. military intervention in Cuba and explains why a significant portion of the Cuban population accepts it, or even desires it.
The text, posted on his Facebook profile, comes at a time of heightened tension between Washington and Havana, following leaks that revealed the Trump administration was testing military plans for Cuba and that the president believed the regime might collapse this very year.
Reyes begins his reflection with a distinction he considers fundamental: the reaction of horror at the possibility of an intervention mainly comes from people who do not live in Cuba, who do not suffer from hunger, lack medication, experience blackouts, or have children who have emigrated. "The focus of Cubans is not military intervention per se," writes the pastor of Esmeralda, Camagüey. "The focus of Cubans is the end of this nightmare, the end of a dictatorship that has robbed us of our lives for generations."
The priest raises the issue in terms of real choices: if intervention is the means to regain freedom, democracy, and a dignified life, then let it be. He adds a condition that speaks volumes: "I am convinced that if there were a dialogue-based, diplomatic, peaceful way to reach a solution to the dramatic reality of Cuba, we Cubans would have chosen it without hesitation."
But that path, Reyes argues, does not exist because the regime has not provided it. "Has the Cuban government shown the slightest interest in reaching a negotiated solution?" he asks. His answer is decisive: the authorities "have entrenched themselves in a triumphant and warlike discourse, demanding ever more creative resistance, more sacrifice, more acceptance of pain and misery."
The priest also dismantles the argument of the embargo as a cause of the crisis. He directly describes it as a "throwing weapon and a resource for victimizing propaganda," and points out the true culprits as the "inefficiency, thirst for power, and indifference" of those who have ruled Cuba for decades with an iron fist.
This stance represents a shift from what Reyes maintained just a year ago. In April 2025, the priest had stated that he did not believe that a U.S. military intervention would be the solution and urged the Cuban government: "Shut this down already. Allow for a peaceful transition." The accelerated deterioration of living conditions on the island seems to have transformed his analysis.
The context surrounding its publication is of unprecedented seriousness. Axios reports revealed on Wednesday that the Trump administration was testing military plans for Cuba. On May 21, the U.S. President commented on a possible action that "it seems I will be the one to do it." The U.S. Senate had rejected a resolution on April 28 that limited presidential powers to act militarily without Congressional authorization. And the USS Nimitz was deployed in the Caribbean around the same time.
The Cuban Parliament had issued a declaration labeling the situation as a "real and dangerous threat of direct military aggression." Cuban leaders, starting with Miguel Díaz-Canel, have responded in a warlike tone to Washington, promising that the people of the Island will confront any aggression en masse to defend the regime.
This climate of extreme tension has a counterpart in public opinion. An independent survey published on May 8 with 42,263 valid responses revealed that 60.9% of participants supported a direct military intervention by the United States in Cuba, and 64.9% endorsed the overthrow of the government "by any means necessary, including armed action." A survey among 800 Cubans and Cuban Americans in South Florida indicated that 79% favored military intervention.
Reyes includes in his text two phrases that, according to him, circulate endlessly among Cubans and encapsulate this collective exhaustion: "the worst that can happen to us is that nothing happens," and "we prefer a terrible ending to a horror without an end."
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