The Cuban priest Alberto Reyes Pías, parish priest of Esmeralda, in Camagüey, clarified this week what dialogue with the regime means to him: not a negotiation on how to improve the system, but a conversation with a single purpose: to agree on how and when the rulers will relinquish power.
In an interview with Tania Costa for CiberCuba, broadcast live after the speech by President Donald Trump at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, September 22, the priest was emphatic about the non-violent resolution to the current Cuban crisis, advocating for the establishment of a dialogue table that could include the Catholic Church itself: "The dialogue is: look, you have ruined the country, you have destroyed this country, and you need to leave. Period. You must relinquish power. Period. That is the condition."
Reyes Pías emphasized that when he talks about dialogue, he is not referring to finding formulas to fix what exists. "When I talk about dialogue, I'm talking about: okay, how are you going to leave? When? How are we going to make it happen for you to exit power?"
The priest acknowledged that a dialogue table would be ideal, but admitted that he himself finds it hard to believe in that possibility. "The ideal is a dialogue table, but I recognize that it sounds naive to me."
His skepticism stems from a concrete observation: the regime's attitude is to cling to power and suppress those who protest, without offering any real peaceful alternative. "I want the change to be peaceful, but from there my question is: are you giving me an option for this to be peaceful?" he stated.
If that avenue does not exist, Father Reyes Pías stated that the alternative would be sustained popular pressure in the streets to force the government out, and he also mentioned the possibility of external intervention. Regarding the latter, he was direct: "Do people in Cuba at the grassroots level expect and desire it? Yes, yes," although he also described that expectation as "naive."
The priest closed that part of the interview with a question that summarizes the desperation of millions of Cubans: "How long are you going to ask me to accept being your slave?"
Father Alberto Reyes Pías is one of the most active voices in the Cuban Catholic Church regarding political matters. Throughout this year, the regime has intensified pressure on him: in January, State Security summoned him along with priest Castor José Álvarez Devesa and issued a warning notice; in February he reported harassment, surveillance, and veiled death threats; in July, the regime prevented him from traveling to Miami. Despite this, he maintains his weekly column "I Have Been Thinking" on Facebook and has not ceased to speak out publicly.
In August, the priest had already proposed a national dialogue to initiate a peaceful transition towards democracy, and in June he had specified that such a dialogue would only make sense if it included concrete answers about when and how the rulers would relinquish power and free elections would be held in Cuba. This week's excerpt is the most direct and forceful formulation of that stance.
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