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Denounce the u.s. trade embargo and that isin direct response to the anti-establishment protestors who took to the streets over shortages of food, basic goods and medical supplies. joining me now from havana is nbc's ed augusta. what is the situation now? it looks peaceful, but what is happening under all of that? >> reporter: well, it is peaceful, but peaceful in large part because the government has limited internet access, over the last couple of days it is starting to come back. and it is peaceful because police and other state forces have been deployed very heavily throughout havana. as y...

But the fact that there was no big anti-government protests again yesterday i think is due in spoke no small part to the state keeping a heavy eye on potential protestors. >> what does the state do? this is not a government that is prone to necessarily listening to the will of the people, but what do they actually do, do they deploy more police and soldiers, are there sort of the presence of law enforcement in areas where there are protests? >> reporter: it is exactly that. so heavy police deployment, some police with dogs. i saw a man wearing a black beret, equivalent to the s.w.a.t. team, he...

The demonstrators, especially demonstrators that were violent. but also there will be some prisoners of conscience. people arrested under house arrest or currently interrogated. i think it's a mix. i'm speaking to you now from an island where the internet has been cut. the authorities likely cut that, one can surmise, to stop a repeat of the demonstrations that we saw two days ago. and in havana right now there's a very heavy police presence. driving here on the way to work you see an expanded police presence. so authorities will be keen to keep a lid on protests if they're able to. >> ed, tha...

Quite frankly, ever. the united states stands firmly with the people of cuba. >> the protests are the culmination of frustration over an on going economic crisis that has been aggravated by the covid-19 virus. joining me is ed augusta who joins us from cuba. good to talk you to. help us contextualize the protesters. what contributed to the uprising? >> this protests are hugely rare in cuba. i've been here reporting for eight years. never seen anything like it. the last protest that was anything on this scale was back in the 1990s after the soviet union collapses. there they were only concentra...

It's very, very difficult to go to private capital markets or russia and china that are going to be thinking if we lend you money, how likely is it that we're going to get it back? so i think in that context, further protests and further -- this deep dissatisfaction is very, very likely. yes, i think we are unfortunately going to see more arrests. hundreds yesterday. >> ed, thank you so much for that eye opening report. i greatly appreciate it. >> and turning now to cuba's neighbor in the caribbean, more news out of haiti. we're getting more details about the those arrested in connection with ...