Nicaragua bleeds, but the U.N. looks the other way
Nicaragua bleeds, but the U.N. looks the other way
BY ANDRÉS OPPENHEIMER
July 13, 2018 10:04 PM
At long last, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres has spoken out about the killing of at least 264 people in Nicaragua’s anti-government protests over the past three months. But his statement, in addition to being long overdue, is pitiful.
In a statement issued by a spokesperson, Guterres said that he is “deeply concerned” about “the continuing and intensifying violence in Nicaragua,” as well as by the July 9 attack against that country’s mediators from the Catholic Church. He also called on “all parties” to refrain from using violence.
But, shamefully, he didn’t say that the overwhelming majority of the killings were carried out by President Daniel Ortega’s regime.
All major human-rights organization agree that the bulk of the violence comes from one side — Ortega’s police and the paramilitary goons it protects. The Organization of American States’ Inter-American Human Rights Commission puts the number of dead since April 18 at 264, while Nicaragua’s Pro-Human Rights Association puts the figure at 309 people and thousands of wounded.
-snip-
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/andres-oppenheimer/article214879485.html