Nicaragua protests erode pillars of support for Ortega
MANAGUA, (Reuters) - A thuggish response to weeks of protests has eroded carefully constructed pillars of support in the Church, military and business world for Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, emboldening calls for the ouster of the former Marxist guerrilla who has dominated politics for decades.
More than a month after changes to the Central American nation’s social security system triggered student-led protests, indignation at a brutal crackdown in which at least 77 people have been killed and over 800 wounded has morphed into a daily challenge to Ortega’s rule.
Protesters demand he step down, while regional diplomatic body the Organization of American States said last week he should hold early elections. He has as yet shown no sign of heeding that call, which could end one of the longest standing leftist governments in Latin America, a staunch ally for socialist Venezuela.
It will be not easy for the loose alliance of students, farmers, politicians and academics to dislodge Ortega, 72, who was re-elected in 2016 with nearly three-quarter of the votes after limiting opposition participation.
But the Sandinista leader, whose office acknowledged a request for comment on this story but provided no immediate response, looks more isolated and fragile than at any other time in his current 11-year tenure as president.
Support from the Catholic Church and the private sector is wavering. There is visible discomfort in the military, a solidly Sandinista organization constructed by Ortega’s brother from the original rebel army that overthrew a U.S.-backed dictator in the 1970s.
Even though the government backpedaled on the social security measures after five days, pent-up discontent exploded.
“This is a civic revolution, unprecedented in my country,” said Violeta Granera, a sociologist who ran as an opposition vice presidential candidate against Ortega in 2016.
The protests, she said, were nothing less than “a national demand for a total change in the economic, political and social system.”
The latest sign of fracturing came on Wednesday, when after just four days of talks, Nicaragua’s Episcopal Council of Catholic bishops suspended a “national dialogue” that had widely been seen as a chance for Ortega to take the wind out of the protests by making small concessions.
The Church had fallen behind its former adversary when he embraced Christianity before his 2007 return to office as a more moderate figure who avoided hostilities with Washington and business leaders.
Yet, in a pointed assessment, Silvio Jose Baez, an auxiliary archbishop of Managua, said the government had failed to embrace the dialogue’s agenda of “democratization of the country.”
On Monday, a smaller group of government, private sector and church representatives restarted talks behind closed doors.
Students and government authori- THOOTHUKUDI, India, (Reuters) - An Indian state yesterday ordered the permanent closure of a copper smelter controlled by London-listed Vedanta Resources after 13 people protesting to demand its shutdown on environmental concerns were killed last week.
“We have taken a decision to permanently shut down the plant and today issued government orders to do the same,” Edappadi K Palaniswami, chief minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu said in a statement after meeting officials, including from the pollution department.
Residents and environmental activists have long demanded a shutdown of the copper smelter, India’s second-biggest with an annual production of more than 400,000 tonnes, citing air and water pollution. Vedanta denies the accusations of pollution.
The company on Monday called the closure of the plant it has operated for over 22 years an “unfortunate development”.
“We will study the order and decide on the future course of action,” Vedanta told Reuters in a statement.
As news of a government order to shut the plant spread, about 100 locals gathered to witness the sealing of the smelter’s main entrance. Fatima Babu, a long-time campaigner against the plant, arrived at the smelter’s entrance shouting “Thank you authorities”.
“We are finally free, we could have been happier if so many people had not died. This is for all of them,” Muthu Pandi, a driver who had come to see the plant being shut, told Reuters.
The district’s main administrative officer, called the collector, supervised the sealing as the crowd whistled and cheered from behind police barricades placed 50
ties agreed in the first days of talks to a truce that quickly fell apart when groups of youths attacked protesters entrenched at the Agrarian University of Nicaragua, badly wounding at least two people.
Dr. Carlos Tunnermann Bernheim, an education minister during Ortega’s first term as president in the 1980s and now a vocal critic participating in the talks, called the violence “a grave violation” of terms agreed in the talks.
Every day since, flag-bearing Nicaraguans have poured through cities and towns. Thousands took to the streets again on Saturday.
At night, protesters hunker behind barricades of brick pulled up from the streets or walls of chairs and desks on university campuses, bracing with homemade mortars for clashes with pro-Ortega gangs whom witnesses and rights groups blame for many of the casualties. PARALYSIS Daily highway blockades have snarled transportation across the country, as students and farmers erect makeshift barricades to damage the economy and wear down the government. The government estimates the turmoil has cost the economy some $250 million.
Despite the losses, many in the private sector are openly backing protesters and demanding change, turning against Ortega after an uneasy alliance in recent years that has undergirded strong economic growth.
In its most explicit move yet, the Superior Council of Private Enterprise in Nicaragua, which represents the private sector, called Sunday on businesses to “join the clamor of mothers, grandmothers and wives who demand justice for the murder of their loved ones” in a march on Wednesday.
“Nobody expected this violence to be the way it was and we all find it disgusting,” said Mario Arana, a former central bank chief and analyst of the private sector.
Arana said that as it dawned on business leaders that police were shooting to maim or kill, with rubber bullets aimed directly at eyes, chests, and heads, or even with live ammunition, “then things began to change for everybody.”
Arana’s version of events chimes with the investigations of two local rights groups and a report from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which last Monday denounced grave violations of human rights characterized by the excessive force used by state security forces and armed third-parties during the protests.
Following the accusations that the initial police response was indiscriminate and disproportionate, agitators in civilian clothing are now behind much of the violence against protesters, observers say.
Ortega has publicly lamented the violence, saying that not only opponents, but also Sandinista supporters, bystanders and police have been killed.
Ortega has consolidated his rule by neutralizing and co-opting credible opposition and stalling the development of independent institutions. His wife, Rosario Murrillo, is vice president and widely seen as a power behind the throne.
But the mass mobilization has allowed politicians such as Granera to forge new alliances between civic and political groups, including her own Broad Front for Democracy, she and others said.
Building an effective anti-government coalition could prove difficult, however, said Eduardo Enriquez, editor of La Prensa newspaper, one of a handful of independent media outlets.
“The longer we don’t see results, people are going to start getting tired and disappointed,” he said. “And they have the force, the brute force. So we don’t want to lose the momentum.” ARMY RELUCTANCE Another base of Ortega’s support is the army. But in recent days it has signaled its refusal to appear in the streets.
Privately to business leaders and then in a statement through a spokesman, senior commanders called for dialogue and said they would not repress the population.
Former officers in mid-May held a meeting in the town of Masaya, southeast of Managua, a former seat of the insurrection in the 1970s against then-strongman Anastasio Somoza and site of some of the most brutal clashes of recent weeks.
They spoke to a raucous gathering of protesters, beside a group painting a sidewalk tribute to the recently fallen, and a few feet from a makeshift hospital tent where volunteers treated wounded protesters who they, along with rights group and witnesses, said were denied access to government hospitals.
“All of us fought the overthrow of the dictatorship of Somoza. Then we participated in the defense of the revolution against the Contras,” said Carlo Breles, a former Sandinista commander. “Now we initiating a third struggle, against the dictatorship of Ortega-Murillo.” Pena Nieto took office in December 2012 promising to get a grip on gang violence and lawlessness. After some initial progress, the situation deteriorated and killings hit their highest level on record last year.
The president’s office had no immediate response to a request for comment.
Pena Nieto is constitutionally barred from seeking reelection, and the prospects of his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) retaining power look grim. PRI candidate Jose Antonio Meade has been running third in nearly all opinion polls.
The principal beneficiary has been leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has built up a strong poll lead on the back of widespread disenchantment with the PRI over corruption and rising violence, as well as sluggish economic growth.
But Lopez Obrador has also faced criticism for floating a possible amnesty for criminals to restore order.
In a thinly veiled jab at Lopez Obrador, the CCE said: “While it is true that violence is not solved by violence, it is also true that crime is not ended by forgiveness or