ZCZC
BFF-21
NICARAGUA-POLITICS-BELGIUM-PROTEST
Nicaruaguan government, opposition agree to resume talks
MANAGUA, March 14, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Nicaragua’s government and opposition
agreed Wednesday to resume negotiations on ending the country’s long-running
political crisis after authorities pledged to release some protesters
detained during anti-government rallies.
The talks will resume Thursday, the government and the opposition Civic
Alliance coalition said. Protests broke out almost 11 months ago, initially
against a pension reform before morphing into general opposition to President
Daniel Ortega’s iron rule.
A brutal crackdown by security services ensued and left 325 people dead
and more than 700 detained between April and October, while thousands of
Nicaraguans fled the country.
The opposition accuses Ortega, a former Sandinista rebel leader, of
running a corrupt, cruel and incompetent leftist dictatorship in the poor
Central American country.
Talks to end the crisis have been intermittent, and they resumed last
month after the government released dozens of prisoners. These people have
since complained to local press that they face police harassment in their
homes.
Then the peace talks were suspended for the last three days over
opposition alliance demands that other political prisoners be freed and
presidential elections brought forward from 2021 in order to return to the
negotiating table.
In the agreement reached Wednesday the government agreed to free a
“considerable” number of prisoners, according to the joint statement.
Earlier Wednesday eight women jailed in Nicaragua during the anti-
government protests suspended their hunger strike, family members said. The
eight began their action on February 27 at the start of the latest round of
peace talks between Ortega’s government and the opposition alliance.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1144 hrs