Nicaraguans were back on the streets in their thousands on Sunday to protest what they called a government breach of a two-day truce agreed during Church-mediated peace talks. Students at a university in northeastern Managua claim police attacked them during a demonstration outside the campus on Saturday night in which four students were shot and injured.
Angry Nicaraguan students taunted President Daniel Ortega with shouts of murderer as he spoke on Wednesday at a Catholic church-organized event aimed at negotiating a solution to weeks of deadly protests that have challenged his rule.
Nicaragua's military called for a halt to violence that has rocked the country during weeks of protests and a deadly crackdown by police and supporters of President Daniel Ortega's government. In a statement late Saturday, the army also expressed solidarity with families of those who have died — more than 60, according to a human rights group.
The influential US gun lobby the National Rifle Association (NRA) has elected a former aide to President Ronald Reagan as its new president. Oliver North, a retired US Marine Colonel, played a major role in the so-called Iran-Contra scandal.
Thousands of Nicaraguans marched peacefully through the capital Managua on Saturday in a mass demonstration to demand justice following the violent suppression of a wave of protests that left at least 43 people dead. During the rally, which was called by the Catholic church, Managua's bishop issued a deadline of one month to see if there was a serious intention to achieve change through a national dialogue aimed at resolving issues that triggered the country's worst unrest in 11 years.
Nicaragua is a volcanic nation, geologically and politically. Forty years ago, seemingly out of nowhere, a series of popular eruptions shook the entrenched regime of Anastasio Somoza, who fell from power on 19 July, 1979. Today, one of the revolutionary architects of that dictator’s ouster, Sandinista party chief Daniel Ortega, rules the country of 6.1 million as high-handedly and corruptly as Somoza ever did.
“Ortega and Somoza are the same thing” protesters in Nicaragua yelled last week against the government of Daniel Ortega, after the announcement of a Social Security's reform that unleashed a wave of protests marked by repression and excessive use of force by the authorities. Human rights organizations have announced that at least 30 people have died in the demonstrations, including students, police and a journalist. This surprise wave of civil protests suggests comparing the crisis in the Central American country with the lived in the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro for years.
Nicaragua's president on Sunday withdrew changes to the social security system that had triggered several days of deadly protests and looting. President Daniel Ortega said in a message to the nation late Sunday that the National Social Security Institute's board of directors had canceled the changes that were implemented April 16.
Costa Rica claimed victory over Nicaragua on Friday, after the United Nations’ highest court awarded Costa Rica disputed territory along the coastal border shared by the two Central American countries. Nicaragua was ordered by the International Court of Justice in The Hague to remove a military base from a contested coastal area near the San Juan river, which the judges said violated Costa Rican sovereignty.
Nicaragua held elections Sunday that look certain to hand another term to popular President Daniel Ortega, and make his wife Rosario Murillo vice-president, but which the opposition said was marked by massive voter abstention and the US Department has described as rigged.