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NICARAGUA-POLITICS-UNREST
One killed, three injured in fresh Nicaragua violence
MANAGUA, May 28, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A Nicaraguan government employee was
killed and three other people injured over the weekend, officials said
Sunday, the latest casualties of deadly political unrest that has wracked the
Central American nation for more than a month.
The deceased, one Jorge Gaston, died in hospital after being shot Friday,
police spokeswoman Vilma Gonzalez said, attributing the killing to “criminal
acts committed by vandalism groups.”
The opposition meanwhile said he was a victim of the government forces
that had attacked protesters the same day.
The fatality brings to 84 the number of people killed since protests began
on April 28, while more than 860 have been wounded, according to humanitarian
groups, police, and relatives of victims.
Initially triggered by now-aborted reforms to the near-bankrupt social
security system, the unrest broadened into a rejection by many Nicaraguans of
President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo.
Ortega, a former Sandinista guerrilla who first ruled between 1979 and
1990 before returning as president 11 years ago, had kept power by
maintaining leftist rhetoric while ensuring an accommodation with powerful
private industry and keeping up trade with the United States.
Demonstrators have voiced frustrations over corruption, the autocratic
style of Ortega and Murillo, limited options to change the country’s politics
in elections, and the president’s control over Congress, the courts, the
military and the electoral authority.
Church-mediated talks aimed at quelling the violence have stalled since
last week, but the Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference called on Sunday for both
sides to attend a session on Monday aimed at reviving the dialogue.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1130 hrs