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Masaya, Nicaragua – Forces loyal to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega seated their control over Masaya, an opposition stronghold, violently resumed yesterday, drawing international condemnation.
Blue T-shirt, balaclava and rifle in hand, dozens of paramilitaries patrolled pickup truck in the streets of the rebel Monimbo neighborhood, until the day before bristling with barricades, AFP found.
Others leaning against walls covered with anti-Ortega graffiti ate or rested. Police vehicles were also visible, as residents returned to their occupations and stores raised their iron curtains.
According to an NGO, some 200 inhabitants of Masaya had to flee Wednesday this city, pursued by pro-government forces.
" At the moment, these people who had taken refuge (in the vicinity of Masaya) are being chased by police and paramilitaries who use dogs to hunt them down ", said the leader of the Nicaraguan Association of Human Rights (ANPDH) Alvaro Leiva.
Waving the red and black flag of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN, left), making the V of Victory or raising their fist, these men celebrated Tuesday's " Victory ".
The FSLN is the only Latin American guerilla that won a military victory against the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, before losing power in the following decade after a violent counterrevolutionary armed conflict. United States, then resume it again, but by the ballot box.
The ruling party is now scrupulously following the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose pension reform bill triggered popular anger in April.
For several hours on Tuesday the inhabitants of the indigenous district of Monimbo tried to resist behind their shelters with stones and mortars.
– Situation " alarming " –
The toll of the clashes in this city of 100,000 inhabitants about thirty kilometers from the capital Managua was far from clear. The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) was two dead, while the government spoke only of a policeman killed. A resident badured AFP that it was a " mbadacre ", while, according to a paramilitary, no one was killed.
" Yesterday (Tuesday), it was a battle of almost six hours, the idea was to dislodge (the rebels) to free the city from barricades ," told AFP Francisco, a 45-year-old paramilitary who participated in the fighting.
According to him, " the population appreciates and thanks ". Giovania Valitan is one of those.
" Thank God, everything has returned to normal and peace has come in. These bad people must seek to repair the damage they have done (…) we want prosperity and work, nothing more, and that the tourists come back, that they are not afraid ", declares to AFP this woman of 34 years.
Others, like Livia Castillo, a 38-year-old housewife, believes that " we do not know (which will happen), I'm very scared, it never happened. I have a 16 year old boy and I'm afraid they'll take him by force, we're very worried "
The incursion into Masaya, which comes two days before the 39th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, is a snub to the international community, which has intensified in recent days calls for the end of the repression.
The situation in Nicaragua " is alarming and worsening day by day ," Wednesday warned the secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in an interview with AFP.
" The behavior adopted by the government in recent days seems to close the door to spaces of dialogue ," said Paulo Abrao about the small country in Central America where more than 280 people lost their lives. life in three months.
A protest movement, spearheaded by students, was launched on April 18 against the government of Daniel Ortega, a 72-year-old former guerrilla, who has headed Nicaragua since 2007 after having already directed from 1979 to 1990.
He is accused of having set up with his wife Rosario Murillo, a " dictatorship " marked by corruption and nepotism. His opponents demand early elections or his departure.
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