Father Alberto Reyes: "Cuba's Current Crisis is Far Worse Than the Special Period"

Father Alberto Reyes Pías, the parish priest of Esmeralda in Camagüey, recently stated in an interview with Tania Costa for CiberCuba that Cuba is currently facing a crisis "infinitely more challenging than the Special Period" of the 1990s. He emphasized that the primary difference between these times is the complete absence of hope.

"During the Special Period, there was a sense that this was just a crisis, but it would get better. Now, we don't think things will improve. We see no improvement on the horizon," declared Father Reyes, a vocal critic within Cuba's Catholic Church.

To underscore the severity of the current situation, Father Reyes Pías used a stark metaphor, repeating it twice: "The ship is sinking."

Systemic Collapse Beyond the Economy

Father Reyes pointed out that today's collapse is not merely economic but structural. "This crisis is systemic. Beyond the lack of food, medicine, power outages, the collapse of the education system, the healthcare system, the hospitals, all of it has come crashing down," he detailed.

He also highlighted a phenomenon that would have been unthinkable in Cuba just a few years ago: the alarming rise in crime. "Violence has escalated to alarming levels, akin to what we used to see only in movies," he said.

Crime and Its Consequences

To illustrate this, he recounted an incident involving a young man from his hometown of Florida in Camagüey. "He made a living by transporting people, renting out a motorcycle. They took him down a rural path and slit his throat to steal the motorcycle. He died. This was unimaginable in Cuba some years ago."

Apart from the material decline, Reyes Pías noted a deep moral fracture in Cuban society. Unlike during the Special Period, when some genuinely believed in the revolution, that conviction has now vanished. "I think many people now pretend to believe in the revolution," he asserted.

Public Dissonance and Government Awareness

The priest described a frequently seen contradiction. "You find someone at a pro-government rally, at a public event on May Day, shouting hoarsely for the revolution, and two days later, you learn that person has left the country."

Reyes Pías warned that the regime is well aware of this phenomenon. "The government knows it. That's why they are so vigilant, and that's why repression is so well-oiled."

The interview took place a day after Donald Trump's speech at the UN General Assembly, where the U.S. president stated that "freedom will come to Cuba" and labeled the Havana regime as a "completely failed state," prompting the Cuban delegation to leave the room in protest.

Dire Economic Forecasts

The economic context supports the priest's diagnosis. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) projects a contraction of the Cuban GDP by between -6.5% and -10.3% by 2026, the worst in Latin America, and an independent study estimates that 6.45 million Cubans—66% of the population—lack sufficient income to cover basic needs.

Reyes Pías, who was summoned by State Security in January under the threat of prosecution for allegedly being a "promoter of hate," concluded his assessment with a phrase that encapsulates the state of mind he describes: "Now there is no hope, and the situation is increasingly overwhelming and desperate."