Page 12 - ARUBA TODAY

A12 WORLD NEWS
Monday 23 april 2018

Dozens of businesses looted amid Nicaragua unrest

the talks would be only with
business leaders.
He also seemed to try to
justify the tough response
by the government and al-
lied groups, accusing dem-
onstrators, most of them
university students, of being
manipulated by unspeci-
fied "minority" political inter-
ests and of being infiltrated
by gangsters.
"What is happening in our
country has no name. The
kids do not even know the
party that is manipulating
them. ... Gang members
are being brought into the
kids' protests and are crimi-
nalizing the protests. That
is why they are put at risk,"
Ortega said.
Those remarks appeared to
fan the flames, as soon af-
terward thousands of peo-
ple spilled back into the
streets in seven cities.
On Saturday, journalist An-
gel Gahona was reporting
live via Facebook on pro-
tests in the southeastern city
Protesters yell from behind the road block they erected as they face off with security forces near the University Politecnica de Ni- of Bluefields when he was
caragua (UPOLI) in Managua, Nicaragua, Saturday, April 21, 2018. killed by a gunshot. At least
Associated Press 25 other people have been
killed since Wednesday
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) what had been a heavy- and the crisis has been bishops in seeking an end according to the indepen-
— Dozens of shops in the Ni- handed response to the combined with poverty, to all violence. dent Nicaraguan Human
caraguan capital of Mana- demonstrations, in which and that in any society is a The disturbances broke out Rights Center, though the
gua have been looted as dozens have been injured time bomb," sociologist and in response to President government had acknowl-
protests and disturbances or arrested. analyst Cirilo Otero said. "It Daniel Ortega's effort to edged only nine dead.
sparked by government State-controlled media is believable that the gov- shore up the troubled so- "We are in the streets asking
social security reforms con- blamed protesters for the ernment is promoting (the cial security system with a for Ortega and his wife to
tinued into Sunday. Human looting, while critics specu- looting) to put pressure on combination of reduced go. This has already gone
rights groups say at least 26 lated that it was being al- private enterprise to give benefits and increased tax- beyond the social secu-
people have been killed in lowed in order to pressure in to dialogue even if the es. They appear to have ex- rity issue. Here there have
several days of clashes. the business sector, which violence does not stop, panded to include broader been dead, wounded, and
Images broadcast by local has set conditions for talks and the cost could be very anti-government grievanc- he does not even apolo-
news media showed loot- with the government, in- high," he added. es. Ortega said Saturday gize for his killings or the
ed shops in the sprawling cluding an end to the harsh From the Vatican, Pope that he would agree to ne- savage repression against
Oriental Market district and crackdown. "We are seeing Francis said he was "very gotiate on the social secu- the people," said Mauri
at least one Walmart. social chaos in Nicaragua worried" about the situation rity reforms so that there is Hernandez, one of thou-
Police apparently did not provoked by the absence in the Central American "no more terror for Nicara- sands of demonstrators at
intervene, in contrast to of government leadership, nation and joined local guan families," but he said a central rotunda.q