Nicaraguan students yell ‘Murderer’ at Ortega, demand he resign

MANAGUA, (Reuters) - Nicaraguan students taunted President Daniel Ortega with shouts of “murderer” as he spoke at an event aimed at negotiating a solution to weeks of deadly demonstrations that flared up again yesterday.

The meeting was a rare opportunity for the protesters to directly address the former Marxist guerrilla, and anger boiled over as the president lamented the violence of recent weeks. At least 49 people have been killed, mostly students, amid demonstrations that began over discontent with a new law that raised worker and employer social security contributions, while cutting benefits.

“This is not a forum of dialogue; this is a forum to negotiate your exit,” one student told Ortega at the start of the event, organized by Nicaragua’s Roman Catholic bishops. “We cannot have dialogue ... because what has been committed in this country is a genocide.”

Ortega talked through the insults. He said all deaths should be investigated and that police were under orders not to open fire in the protests, which have turned into the worst crisis of his more than a decade back in power.

“Of course the deaths pain us. The death of even one citizen pains us,” said Ortega, harking back to his own fight against authoritarian rule.

In an airport parking lot, people stood beside their cars, listening in silence to a live broadcast of Wednesday’s event. A woman called out names of dead protesters, and others shouted: “Presente!” (“Here we are!”), echoing a call from the Sandinista revolution.