Cuba: the reasons for the anger

Audio 19:30

Demonstrations of unprecedented scale have taken place in the streets of several Cuban cities.

Havana, July 11, 2021 © ALEXANDRE MENEGHINI / REUTERS

By: Mikaël Ponge

23 mins

Three days after the unprecedented demonstrations that shook the Castro island, on Sunday July 11, 2021, the government which restored the mobile internet is trying to regain control and has just announced a series of measures to restore calm.

Publicity

Among these measures, the lifting of restrictions so that travelers can take, from Monday, July 19, 2021, food, medicines and hygiene products at will without paying customs duties. President Miguel Diaz-Canel believes that the government "must conduct a critical analysis of the disturbances so that they do not recur." Last Sunday (July 11), there were thousands in the streets of Cuba, mostly young people.

Unprecedented demonstrations against the backdrop of the economic crisis, aggravated by the coronavirus crisis and US sanctions.

The independent news site 14yMedio has reported 5,000 arrests since.

The government is trying to regain control and in the Cuban streets, police and soldiers have been mobilized.

But, for now, young people calling for change do not feel heard, and these protests seem to be a sign of the changing times in Cuba.

  • Haiti: the investigation is progressing, civil society is mobilized

The assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse by an armed commando on July 7, 2021, was planned from the neighboring Dominican Republic, according to the police chief. On a photo that has gone viral on social networks, as detailed by Frantz Duval, editor-in-chief of the daily

Le Nouvelliste

. On Wednesday July 14, Dimitri Hérard, the head of security at the presidential palace, was taken into custody. In total, four security officials of the president have been placed in solitary confinement and 24 officers are subject to precautionary measures, according to Leon Charles, the police chief.

Nevertheless, according to the Colombian media Noticias Caracol which says it relies on sources within the FBI, and sources also in Haiti, the assassination would have "started to be planned in November 2020 in the building of the headquarters of CTU Security at Miami". Among the participants in this meeting, in particular: the American of Haitian origin, James Solages, and the Haitian Christian Emmanuel Sanon, both arrested in recent days in Port-au-Prince. According to Caracol, they would have planned at the time to remove the president to place in power the current interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph.

While these different avenues are explored, the question still arises of who should lead the country.

A large citizens' conference was to be held this Thursday, July 15, 2021, in Port-au-Prince, at the initiative of the Commission for the search for a Haitian solution to the crisis.

It is finally postponed to Saturday.

Its objective is to find a Haitian political consensus in order to avoid foreign intervention.

Newsletter

Receive all international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

  • Cuba

  • Haiti

  • Jovenel Moses

On the same subject

Cuba: the authorities try to appease a population raised

Cuba: a hundred arrests and at least one dead after the protests

INTERVIEW

Haiti: "The intervention of the blue helmets is a moral obligation"