Nicaragua

After an especially bloody weekend in which Nicaraguan government forces attacked opposition demostrators in numerous cities, the OAS, UN and CELAC all reacted today to the deepening crisis in the Central American country. Here is the report from dpa news.

Shootings, abduction of opponents, attacks on churches, priests and bishops and at least ten dead, marked Sunday in the continuing attempt by Daniel Ortega to crush the civic rebellion against his government. Meanwhile, international condemnation of the escalation of violence is growing by the day.

HAVANA TIMES – Nicaraguan singer/songwriter Carlos Mejia Godoy, author of many of the songs sung by the Sandinista rebels in their battle against the Somoza dictatorship in the 1970s, makes a dramatic call to Daniel Ortega to stop the killing unleashed since April by his government’s forces.

Two students dead and another 16 wounded resulted from a government ordered paramilitary attack on Managua’s UNAN university and a nearby Catholic Church where many took refuge, reported dpa news on Saturday.

Medardo Mairena, coordinator of the National Council in Defense of the Land, the Lake and Sovereignty, was arrested at noon on Friday, July 13, at Managua’s Augusto C. Sandino Airport and taken to a jail cell in El Chipote.

At least 90% of Managua’s businesses closed on Friday following the call for a national strike by the Civic Alliance with support from the main business chambers, to continue demanding that Daniel Ortega negotiate his peaceful exit from power after unleashing the worst slaughter in four decades in Nicaragua.

Two resolutions have been proposed in the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) regarding the crisis that Nicaragua is suffering, a calamity that on Thursday reached 86 days with a toll of 264 deaths, and rising by the day. [The Council will hold a special session on the Central American country Friday at 2:00 p.m. EDT in Washington D.C.]