30 The Americas The Economist July 17th 2021
Soviet Union brought foreign aid to an
abrupt halt. There were public protests
then, too, which were quickly dispersed.
But Cubans now have access to the internet
and are adept at using it to mobilise.Vid
eos of police violence and arbitrary arrests
have been circulating rapidly in recent
days. At one point in the afternoon ofJuly
11th, as the protests reached their height,
the authorities appeared to block all inter
net access. Some socialmessaging sites
have also been suspended.
But much as the government maywish
to turn the internet off, it cannot affordto:
the exorbitant access fees charged bythe
state telecoms monopoly are an important
source of foreign exchange. The internetis
also a vital conduit for remittancesfrom
Cubans abroad. Mobile data and WiFi
charges bring in perhaps $80m a monthfor
the government, estimates Emilio Morales
of Havana Consulting Group in Miami.
“The government has closed itselfup
like an oyster,” says José Jasán NievesCár
denas, editor of El Toque, a Cuban maga
zine mostly published online. “Insteadof
acknowledging that it has to come outand
establish a dialogue with its people, ithas
chosen repression.” Tear gas and rubber
bullets were used against crowds, although
in some instances security officers wereso
outnumbered by protesters that theywere
forced to retreat. As things escalated,po
lice cars were overturned and some dollar
stores, symbols of the regime’s economic
incompetence, were ransacked.
Mr DíazCanel blames Cuba’s troubles
on the embargo imposed by the United
States, as the government always does.He
has ignored the complaints of the protes
ters, dismissing them as mercenaries,and
offered excuses rather than plans forre
form. After the president gave a speechon
July 12th more protesters gathered outside
the Capitol building in Havana. Otherthan
stepping down, there is not much MrDíaz
Canel could do to make amends to hispeo
ple, says the owner of a small business.
“You can’t cover the sun with one finger,”
she says. Rumours are circulating that
even members of the police are startingto
defy their orders, as some think the protes
ters have a point.
Alfred Martínez Ramírez, a memberof
27 n, a group of activists, artists and intel
lectuals campaigning for greater freedom
of expression, joined a protest outsidethe
Ministry of Culture in November. Some
300 people were present, which at thetime
seemed a huge number. Cubans rarely
protest, not least because unauthorised
public gatherings are illegal. Seeing thou
sands of people on the streets of Havana
and elsewhere in Cuba gives Mr Martínez
Ramírez hope that his group is not alone,
and that they may have even helped many
others overcome their fear of dissent.
“There has been an awakening,” he says.nHaiti’scrisisAprès Moïse,
le déluge?
T
he lasttime a president was murdered
in Haiti, in 1915, troops from the United
States occupied the Caribbean country for
19 years. They introduced racialsegrega
tion laws, built infrastructure with forced
labour and left a bloody legacy by stamping
down on cacos, the insurgents who defied
the occupation. Writing in the New Yorker
in 2015, Edwidge Danticat, a HaitianAmer
ican novelist, described how her uncle re
called seeing marines kicking a man’s de
capitated head around like a football, to
scare the rebels in their area.
A week on from the murder, on July 7th,
of Jovenel Moïse, Haiti’s increasingly auto
cratic president, much remains unclear.
No one knows who ordered the hit, or why.
And no one knows how the United States
will react if its poor and chaotic neighbour
once again slides into mayhem.
The Haitian authorities’ version of
events is murky. They allege that a team of
28 mercenaries, mainly Colombians but al
so two HaitianAmericans, stormed the
president’s house, riddling his body with 12
bullets. Colombian investigators say that
some of their compatriots, who were paid
around $3,000 a month each, did not know
they were part of an assassination plot. It is
unclear how the killers got past the presi
dent’s bodyguards,or why Mr Moïse’s head
of security at the residence seems to have
recently visited Colombia.
Conspiracy theories are rife. Léon
Charles, Haiti’s chief of police, declaredthat Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian
doctor who lives in Florida, was behind the
attack. A report in the New York Timessug
gests that Mr Sanon had aspirations to be
come the head of a transitional govern
ment, but that plans for a coup or murder
were never discussed.
Mr Moïse’s death has left a power vacu
um. Haiti has no sitting parliament; the
president had ruled by decree since Janu
ary 2020. Three men are now jostling for
control: Claude Joseph, the interim prime
minister at the time of Mr Moïse’s death,
who has declared he is in charge of the
country and instituted martial law; Ariel
Henry, who was prime ministerdesignate
and due to be sworn in on July 7th; and Jo
seph Lambert, one of the ten remaining
elected officials in the country.
In previous moments of crisis, foreign
powers have swiftly intervened in Haiti.
The United States got involved in 1994 to
reinstate JeanBertrand Aristide, Haiti’s
first democratically elected leader, who
was ousted in a coup in 1991. (Mr Aristide
claims that American troops were also in
volved in another coup to oust him in
2004.) Many Haitians accuse the United
States of interfering in elections, including
those in 201011 that brought to power Mi
chel Martelly, a singer who anointed Mr
Moïse, a former bananaplantation man
ager, as his successor.
Such meddling has tended to be unpop
ular. “All my life, foreign interventions
have brought a lot of misery to Haiti,” says
Sabine Lamour, a Haitian activist. So it sur
prised some when, soon after claiming the
top job, Mr Joseph called for America to in
tervene to protect Haiti’s “infrastructure”.
This may be a cynical move to consolidate
his power. The United States and the un
initially recognised that he was in charge;
the presence of American troops would re
inforce that idea. But for now Joe Biden’s
administration has declined to send any.
On July 11th fbiagents were dispatched to
help the Haitian police force work out who
was behind the assassination. (One news
report suggested that the fbiwas investi
gating whether Mr Joseph was involved.)
It is impossible to know whether Haiti
would be in a better position, now, had the
United States always left it alone. Amy Wi
lentz, the author of two books on Haiti,
says Americans have mostly involved
themselves with “institution imitation”.
“They may have built a palace of justice and
put in place judges, but not a real justice
system,” she argues.
After an earthquake in 2010 that killed
perhaps 200,000 people, foreign govern
ments and ngos donated $10bn, about
150% of gdpat the time. About $1.2bn of
that came from America. Since 2010 the
United States has spent $312m on training
and equipping the Haitian police, who are
weaker than the many gangs that controlNo one knows who killed Haiti’s
president or what to do about itWho’s giving the orders?