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Shooting Erupts as Nicaraguan Forces Move into Symbolic City

by Associated Press

   MANAGUA, NICARAGUA --

   Nicaraguan national police and armed pro-government civilians laid
   siege Tuesday to a symbolically important neighborhood that has
   recently become a center of resistance to President Daniel Ortega's
   government.

   Government forces began advancing on Masaya's Monimbo neighborhood
   before dawn and within several hours had surrounded the area and pushed
   closer to single-story homes and artisan workshops about 16 miles
   southeast of the capital.

   The same neighborhood's residents rose up against strongman Anastasio
   Somoza in the late 1970s as part of the Nicaraguan Revolution led in
   part by Ortega himself. But since protests against cuts to the social
   security system in mid-April became a broader call for Ortega to leave
   office, Monimbo has again become a center of the opposition.

   Ortega's government has dismissed opponents as delinquents attempting a
   coup d'etat and wants to quell unrest in Masaya before Thursday's
   three-month anniversary of the start of protests across Nicaragua.
   Thursday is also the 39th anniversary of Liberation Day, which marks
   the overthrow of the Somoza regime in 1979 by the Sandinistas.

   Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo, who is also Ortega's wife,
   said Monday it was necessary to "clean" Monimbo and Masaya. She
   described the opposition as "coup plotters, few in number, malignant,
   sinister, diabolical, satanic and terrorists."

   Masaya's police commissioner struck a similarly combative tone.

   "The population of Masaya, the population of Monimbo, has asked us to
   free them from the delinquents and terrorists that have them trapped
   with their deadly barricades, and we're going to do it at any cost,"
   said commissioner Ramon Avellan.

   Gangs of armed men dressed as civilians appear to be working in
   coordination with police to remove roadblocks set up by the opposition
   that have snarled the country's traffic for months. Last weekend,
   government-allied forces retook the National Autonomous University of
   Nicaragua campus in Managua, where students had been holed up.

   With gunshots echoing in the background Tuesday, a woman who asked only
   to be identified as Silvia out of safety concerns said she treated
   wounded victims in a makeshift field clinic.

   Silvia, a member of Monimbo's April 19 resistance movement, said youth
   were fighting with homemade mortars to defend the roadblocks erected at
   the neighborhood's perimeter, but government forces were heavily armed.

   "We need the (Organization of American States), the international
   organizations to stop this massacre," Silvia said. "We're fighting for
   democracy, for freedom."

   Several hours later she said that pro-government "paramilitaries" had
   control of a good part of the area and that the opposition had fled
   into the surrounding woods. "Their firepower doesn't compare with our
   homemade weapons."

   Police roadblocks prevented journalists from entering Monimbo.

   Managua's auxiliary Roman Catholic bishop Silvio Jose Baez said via
   Twitter that bullets in Monimbo entered the Maria Magdalena parish
   where a priest was sheltering inside.

   The government says more than 200 people have been killed since the
   unrest began, but independent rights groups say the number is higher.

   On Tuesday, the United Nations human rights office spokesman Rupert
   Colville said, "The appalling loss of life must stop -- now."

   "The violence is all more horrific as armed elements loyal to the
   government are operating with the active or tacit support of the police
   and other state authorities," he said.

   On Monday, Nicaragua's National Assembly, which is controlled by
   Ortega's party, approved a law against terrorism.

   Colville said that the loosely-worded legislation could be used to
   target people "who are simply exercising their right to protest."

   Francisco Palmieri, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for
   western hemisphere affairs, said via Twitter that the U.S. strongly
   urges Ortega to not attack Masaya. "Continued gov't-instigated violence
   and bloodshed in (hash)Nicaragua must end immediately. The world is
   watching."

   Nicaraguan political analyst Oscar Rene Vargas said that if the
   government succeeds in taking control of Masaya "it would be a tactical
   victory, but not a strategic one because the rebellion is going to
   continue internally and on an international level."