Ortega to attend crisis talks with opposition
MANAGUA: Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was Wednesday set to attend longawaited crisis talks with the opposition after nearly a month of violence that has left scores dead, officials said.
The Central American country’s Roman Catholic bishops said earlier this week they would mediate in the so- called “national dialogue.”
“Tomorrow, from 10 in the morning, once the national dialogue is opened by the bishops, our president will be there, we will be there,” Ortega’s wife and government spokeswoman, Rosario Murillo, had said on Tuesday.
Her statement came as demonstrators and riot police clashed in the northern town of Matagalpa, ruled by Ortega’s Sandinista Front party.
The town’s mayor, Sadrach Zeledon, said one person was killed “by right-wing vandalism groups,” referring to the demonstrators, who in turn said the victim, Wilber Reyes, was killed in attacks launched by police.
Meanwhile, 35 people were injured in the clashes and at least 10 people had been arrested, the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights spokesman in the city, German Herrera, told local TV station 100 per cent Noticias.
The education ministry said on its website that local high schools had been closed as a security precaution.
In Masaya, 30 kilometres southeast of the capital Managua, residents reported harsh repression by riot police, while parents and students from private high schools marched Tuesday afternoon in Managua demanding justice and freedom.
The US embassy in Nicaragua has suspended the processing of nonimmigrant visas until further notice, citing the instability.
Ortega had accepted the notion of talks in the early days of the crackdown, but the church deemed he had not fulfi lled conditions in which they could be held. — AFP