Nicaragua shootout raises specter of guerrillas

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Nicaragua shootout raises specter of guerrillas

AP foreign, Friday December 6 2013

LUIS MANUEL GALEANO

Associated Press= MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — A rare shootout between police and an armed group that left 10 people dead in northern Nicaragua has fueled suspicions that guerrillas are forming to challenge President Daniel Ortega's government.

Nicaraguan officials have called Wednesday's confrontation in the town of Ayapal near the Honduran border little more than an attempted grocery store robbery gone bad. Ortega Chief of Staff Ana Isabel Morales said Wednesday the assailants were "criminals."

Others disputed the official account. One of the country's main human rights groups, as well as a former Ortega ally and a Roman Catholic bishop reportedly in touch with a guerrilla band said the bloodshed represented evidence of long-rumored insurgent activity.

"We can't accept that there are 10 deaths in an attempted assault on a small town, it's illogical,' said Roberto Petray, director of the National Association for Human Rights. He said there were 12 members of an armed group under the leadership of a guerrilla who goes by the name of "El Flaco," and they were "trying to take control of a police post, but it seems someone warned the police and they opened fire at the entrance to the village."

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/feedarticle/11097436

[Paolo123]

1. I wonder

IF by "guerrillas" they mean paid CIA killers, like the last time.

[Judi Lynn]

2. They want everything back just as it was all those decades under US puppet Somozas.

Thumbnail refresher on the Somozas:

ANASTASIO SOMOZA, SR. AND JR.

Presidents of Nicaragua

The Marines invaded Nicaragua in 1912, and stayed until 1933, fighting but never defeating the revolutionary Augusto Sandino. They created the Nicaraguan National Guard and installed Anastasio Somoza Garcia in power. Then Sandino, who had signed a truce and put down his arms, was assassinated by Somoza. A general who led the Marines into Nicaragua, explained, " I was a high class muscle-man for big business, for Wall Street and for the banks. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. l helped purify Nicaragua for an International banking house." President Franklin Roosevelt put it another way. "Somoza may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch." Corruption, torture, and wholesale murder of dissidents continued for 45 years under two generations of Somozas, for after Somoza Garcia was gunned down in the streets in 1956, his son Anastasio Somoza Debayle took control. The Somozas plundered Nicaragua and became millionaires. The younger Somoza, made $12 million a year buying the blood of his people and selling it abroad at a 300% mark-up. In 1972 after an earthquake killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans, Somoza had his National Guard seize $30 million in international relief supplies and sold them to the highest bidder. Near the end of his reign, he aerially bombed his own capital to stay in power, but he was overthrown in 1979 by a rebel group who called themselves the Sandinistas, after the revolutionary hero his father had slain.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

[center]

Anastasio Somoza García



"young" Anastasio Somoza Debayle



Older Anastasio Somoza Debayle[/center]

[Paolo123]

3. thanks

I had no idea the origin of "Sandanistas" until now.