Nicaragua shut down by strike
Community heeds call by students
THOUSANDS of shopkeepers and businessmen in Nicaragua on Thursday heeded calls for a national strike by foes of President Daniel Ortega, shutting down much of the country after nearly two months of deadly protests urging his ouster.
Streets were deserted in cities and towns as banks and supermarkets, petrol stations and corner stores were closed.
Few people ventured out during the 24-hour stoppage.
Police officers with assault rifles lined the largely empty main streets of the capital Managua.
The strike, organised by university students, farmers and business owners, was the latest tactic by a loose national alliance formed to dislodge the president.
“Look at this, it’s a desert,” said Juan Jose Murillo, 38, pointing to a vacant parking lot and the empty stalls of the usually bustling Huembes market, a central shopping destination.
Murillo, a street vendor, said he has struggled to make a living since demonstrations started.
“I don’t support any political party. I just want the conflict to end.”
“They will have to kill us all,” said a masked youth with the shell of a burned down bus behind him.
“We will not back down.” Ortega’s attempt to push through welfare cuts in April kicked off the bloodiest confrontations since a civil war ended in 1990.
The government of the former Marxist guerilla and leader of the Sandinista rebel movement quickly dropped the planned welfare cuts.
But the crackdown on protesters has sparked his biggest crisis since his second stint as president began in 2007.
Nearly 150 have been killed and hundreds injured in eight weeks of clashes between pro-Ortega forces and protesters armed with rocks, slings and homemade mortars.
In a statement on Thursday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected as “biased” the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ condemnation a day earlier of ongoing state-sanctioned repression.
The commission released a scathing preliminary report in late May criticising “grave violations of human rights” during a government crackdown.
Ortega’s administration has said the protesters were vandals who were trying to destabilise his government and undermine democracy in one of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest countries.