President claims the unrest that has left over 300 dead is due to a ‘diabolical force’ from a US-backed conspiracy to topple him

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega has hit out at what he has claimed is a “murderous, coup-mongering satanic sect” behind a three-month uprising against his rule that has left more than 300 dead.



There is growing international consensus that Ortega’s own forces and pro-government militias are responsible for the overwhelming majority of the violence that has gripped Nicaragua since protests erupted in April.

However, during a pro-government rally in Managua on Thursday, Ortega sought to shift blame for the bloodshed on to the “diabolical force” he claimed was part of a US-backed conspiracy to topple him.



Nicaragua: what's driving the uprising and what comes next? Read more

“We have to re-establish order in our country,” the former guerrilla told thousands of flag-waving supporters who had assembled in the lakeside Plaza de la Fe to celebrate the 39th anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista victory over the Somoza dictatorship. “The road isn’t war, but peace and dialogue.”

Ortega has faced growing international condemnation over the killings in recent days, including from one-time supporters.

Uruguay’s former leftwing president, José Mujica, this week said he feared the Sandinista dream had strayed into autocracy, adding: “There are times in life when you must say: ‘I’m off.’”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Daniel Ortega speaks during the celebration of the 39th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution at the Plaza de la Fe, in Managua, Nicaragua, on 19 July. Photograph: Oswaldo Rivas/Reuters

Thirteen Latin American countries – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay – have denounced “the acts of violence, intimidation and the threats directed towards Nicaraguan society”.

That criticism coincides with what observers call an intensifying government propaganda campaign intended to blunt growing international pressure.

“They are trying to push back and persuade people that it is not a matter of innocent students being attacked by a brutal government, it is a matter of a government defending citizens … from criminals and thugs who are being paid by the extreme right,” said Geoff Thale, a Central America expert and activist from the advocacy group Washington Office on Latin America.

But Thale said such allegations were not supported by fact. “Do I think the demonstrators are all noble pacifists? No, I wouldn’t say that. But that this is some organised effort by the extreme right who has hired organised criminals and foreign thugs? I don’t think there is any credible evidence for that.”

Thale compared attempts to equate opposition violence with killings carried out by government-linked forces to Donald Trump’s bid to blame “both sides” for white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year. “There may be violent acts on both sides … But overwhelmingly the deaths have been of protesters and people associated with them.”

