AZMEX NICARAGUA SPECIAL 16 JUL 2018
Note: "Paramilitaries"? Sandinista Youth. Much like other "youth" orgs. of years past. 1930's?
Thx
At least 10 dead and 20 injured
The government launches attack in seven cities of Nicaragua
Paramilitaries shoot a bishop's truck; the global condemnation against repression grows
http://www.jornada.com.mx/2018/07/16/mundo/025n1mun
Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, July 16, 2018, p. 25
Managua
At least 10 people, including four policemen and two minors, died and 20 were wounded yesterday in several cities of Nicaragua, during paramilitary operations against demonstrators who were entrenched in neighborhoods and roads, a day in which the bishop of Estelí , Abelardo Mata, escaped unharmed from a gunshot attack, perpetrated by presumed paramilitaries, while driving in his vehicle south of the Nicaraguan capital.
Mata, one of the five Catholic leaders who mediate in the dialogue between the government and the opposition, was intercepted by paramilitaries who attacked their car. They broke the glass and wanted to burn it, said his assistant, Roberto Petray.
The area where the attack took place yesterday was under the control of paramilitaries, human rights organizations said.
I just spoke with Monsignor Juan Abelardo Mata and, after the incident in Nindirí, he is out of danger, the auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez, tweeted.
The area of aggression, Nindirí, 25 kilometers from the capital, is under the control of paramilitary groups and police.
Roberto Petray told Channel 15 (private) that the priest was returning to Managua de Tisma, a town near Nindirí, province of Masaya (southeast), where he travels every Sunday for work.
Petray assured that the Monsignor Mata managed to get safely with his driver into a house. He is not injured and they are already being sheltered by the police, he added.
In Catarina, south of Masaya, paramilitaries and police assaulted the cural home of that tourist city and stole belongings of a priest, denounced the Archdiocese of Managua.
The situation is tense in the city of Masaya, located 27 kilometers from the capital, which this Sunday was besieged and under attack by combined forces of the police and paramilitaries, denounced Álvaro Leiva, director of the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights.
Leiva told Channel 15 that he was concerned that residents of the area were holding eleven elements of the security forces.
The National Police reported that one of its agents was kidnapped and then tortured by alleged terrorists who have raised barricades against the Nicaraguan government.
He said that policeman Gabriel Vado Ruiz was kidnapped on the 14th, after leaving the pass to meet his family in the city of Jinotepe, southern region, but he did not reach his destination.
The officer was taken to the indigenous community of Monimbó, in the city of Masaya, where he was allegedly tortured to death. His body was incinerated, authorities reported in a press release.
The activist Álvaro Leiva said that among the deceased there are four riot police and two minors.
Masaya, Diriá, Diriomo, Catarina and Niquinohomo were, since dawn yesterday, the target of violent paramilitary operations, including the illegal detention of opposition demonstrators, said Leiva.
Solidarity caravan
Before the siege, civil society organizations went to Masaya from Managua, in a caravan of solidarity, but returned to the starting point 10 kilometers before arriving, due to the presence of paramilitaries, according to student leader Lesther Aleman.
The secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Paulo Abrao, tweeted that he is aware of the violent repression of the Masaya populations. The State seems to ignore the dialogue with the opposition, which demands the resignation of President Daniel Ortega.
Interviewed by Channel 15, Yubrank Suazo, leader of the opposition Movimiento 19 de Abril de Masaya, confirmed a strong presence of paramilitaries in all the exits of Masaya, with the apparent intention of attacking the Monimbó neighborhood, bastion of the opposition in the protests against government.
According to press reports, the violent paramilitary operations were reported in the early hours of yesterday against demonstrators in the barricades of Diriá and Diriomo, neighboring towns that are only divided by a highway, and then continued in Catarina and Niquinohomo.
According to El Nuevo Diario, residents of Diriá and Diriomo reported that drones flew over houses. They assured that gusts were heard in some sectors of Masaya, where the bells of the church San Sebastián began to ring to alert the population of an attack.
Without mentioning the violent operatives against the blockades, the official website 19 Digital published photographs of the road sections that, he said, are already released and the population can circulate with tranquility and security to carry out their daily activities.
Nicaragua is experiencing its worst crisis in 40 years, which began with a student protest against a social security reform, which was repealed later, and which spread throughout the country after the violent police reaction.
Human rights organizations report 351 deaths, mostly civilians, but the government only recognizes 49.
Just on Saturday, Catholic bishops negotiated the release of dozens of students who spent an agonizing night inside a church in Managua under siege by pro-government armed groups, which killed at least two people, according to a civil rights group.
International condemnations of violence continued. The European Union and the governments of Spain, Costa Rica and Chile separately repudiated the situation in the Central American country and urged the Ortega government to resume the path of dialogue.
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Also: http://www.oann.com/death-toll-reaching-400-as-10-more-nicaraguan-protesters-killed/
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