Stop violence, Nicaragua told

US warns nation to end attack against protesters as more killed in unrest

MANAGUA: The United States warned Nicaragua to halt violence against opposition groups as at least four more people were killed in unrest that has gripped the country for three months.

US Vice-President Mike Pence said it was “undeniable” that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s government was behind the violence, despite his denials.

Pence on Tuesday used Twitter to call on Ortega to “end the violence NOW” and bow to opposition demands to hold early elections.

“The world is watching!” Pence added.

On Monday Ortega gave an inter- view to US television channel Fox News saying that he would not step down and would see through his current term to 2021.

He also asserted that “the turmoil has stopped” in his country after offensives over the past couple of weeks against protest hubs, and he denied his security forces and coordinating paramilitaries were attacking peaceful demonstrators.

Speaking on Venezuelan television, Ortega accused US senators in Miami of being behind a “conspiracy” to try to effect regime change in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

According to a non-governmental rights group, the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, Nicaragua’s death toll stands at 301 since the turmoil started in mid-April. Other groups give higher figures. An AFP photographer in the city of Jinotega, north of the capital, saw funerals for two of three people locals said were killed by police and pro-government paramilitaries.

Those killed included a boy, said the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights.

In Managua, a 32-year-old Brazilian medical student was fatally shot while driving home at night, one of her professors at the American University in the capital said.

Brazil’s government expressed “profound outrage” at the killing.

In a statement, it demanded the killers be brought to justice, and condemned the “disproportionate and lethal use of force, as well as the use of paramilitary groups in operations with security teams”.

Ortega, in his Fox News and Venezuela state television interview, spoke only of dozens of police officers killed in the violence.

He also denied controlling paramilitaries acting against protesters.

Those assertions prompted Pence to tweet: “State-sponsored violence in Nicaragua is undeniable. Ortega’s propaganda fools no one and changes nothing.”