Nicaragua: Anti-Ortega groups roll out hit-and-run tactics

Source: Christian Science Monitor

Managua, Nicaragua - A surprise attack by masked youths who pelted Supreme Court magistrate Francisco Rosales with eggs is the latest in a series of guerrilla-style protests from a growing underground movement against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega. Mr. Rosales, an enthusiastic loyalist of Mr. Ortega, was ambushed Thursday as he was entering a local TV station to defend the Sandinista magistrates' controversial ruling last week to scrap a constitutional ban on consecutive presidential terms, clearing the way for Ortega to run for office again in 2011.

The egging was part of a new trend of civil disobedience that has largely been driven underground due to Sandinista repression on the streets. The fact that opposition protests are routinely broken up with violence, coupled with the perception of Sandinista impunity and increasingly brazen infringements against Nicaragua's rule of law, have been the driving forces behind a budding clandestine protest movement made up mostly of university students and other youths.

But since last week's ruling – which the United States denounced – the underground movement has taken on a new urgency, sparking concerns of violent clashes with Sandinista supporters who vow to "permanently defend" Ortega's right to reelection.

"We are now living in a failed state; we are fighting for democracy and rule of law," says "Ernesto," a leader of the underground movement who declined to use his real name for fear of retribution. He said the core leadership of the protest movement is made up of "20 to 30 decision-makers," but that the group has grown to some 200 members who "operate in cells." Ernesto says the clandestine organization is planning to escalate its protests in the coming days and weeks.

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Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1027/p90s01-woam.html

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Edited to add:

Additional info here - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/22/AR2009102204692.html

Sore losers.

Surprised!

... No podrá ser candidato a Presidente ni Vicepresidente de la República:
a) El que ejerciere o hubiere ejercido en propiedad la Presidencia de la República en cualquier tiempo del período en que se efectúa la elección para el período siguiente, ni el que la hubiere ejercido por dos períodos presidenciales; ...

<from pdf of Constitution via the National Assembly website: http://www.asamblea.gob.ni/>

Minus the unwavering US backing, support from the military and entrenched conservative oligarchy, a death squad society put in place to protect international business interests....... you're right, totally like Somoza. Now, when are we going to mine the harbors again? That was just totally neat and awesome the first time around. I'm sure you were a big fan.

<snip>

...What we are seeing is virtually an exact replay of what happened after Daniel Ortega became president the first time, in 1985. During that administration, the Sandinistas robbed the country blind in what came to be known popularly, and despairingly, as "the pinata," a reference to the decorated paper animals the Mexicans break open at holidays for presents. It was then that both Daniel Ortega and his brother Humberto, who became head of the Sandinista military and is now an enormously wealthy man, simply took over the finest homes in the country -- homes in which they still unabashedly live...

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More at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucgg/20091026/cm_ucgg/constitutionaltinkeringopensdoortoortegareelection

Nice we could straighten things out, thanks.

Never really been impressed by her work anyway, so if you're looking to make an effective name-drop (or dropping another deuce) please make another attempt. Actually, please don't--I'm sure anything else chambered will be as predictable in the rehashing of Reaganite propaganda in support of national terrorism as this was. I also have her biography on Castro and at various points it might as well have been written by the Miami terrorist gangs--actually, they're sourced extensively, so nevermind the "might as well".

She's only been writing cogent, insightful, and intelligent articles on Latin America for, oh, thirty years or so.

If you take exception with her biography of Fidel, well, as you know, earlier this week his own sister revealed how she broke with him over his betrayal to revolutionary ideals, and his execution or imprisonment of political rivals.

US interference -- which traditionally in Central America involves the mass murder of poor people. There is no question where Georgia Anne Geyer stands: in the 1980s, she supported Reagan's murderous policies in Central America, and she remains a rightwing hack today

It appears she was threatened with murder by Central American right-wing vigilantes during that time.

Is that a sign she's a right-wing hack? It would seem just the opposite to me.

systematic effort to make such old materials available in cyberspace. But it's not necessary to go back a quarter century to identify her point of view clearly. She uses the well-known conservative buzzwords. In her world racist groups are simply interested in "Confederate heritage"; "liberal" is an insult, to be identified with "anti-Americanism." In her world, it is enough to say, "Witness California and its overwhelming Hispanic numbers," as if this were some sort of coherent argument -- when it is, in fact, merely the usual mindless noise spewed by conservatives as if the Hispanics in California were some horror, rather than a group that had been present there for centuries before the mass English-speaking immigration associated with the Gold Rush. The ideological tone is difficult to misinterpret. I suspect that if a Guatemalan death squad ever did threaten her, it was forty some years ago when she was less ideological and more concerned with facts

... During Ashcroft's confirmation hearing, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware raised the issue of his interview with Southern Partisan magazine. That publication is so favorable toward the days of slavery that it has sold a T-shirt bearing a picture of Abraham Lincoln accompanied by the Latin words of his assassin, "Sic Semper Tyrannis" ... Ashcroft went out of his way to praise Southern Partisan during his 1998 interview -- when he said that the magazine "helps set the record straight" and lauded it for "defending Southern patriots" such as Jefferson Davis, the vehement advocate of slavery who was president of the Confederacy .... pro-Ashcroft spinners did their best ... Georgie Anne Geyer told viewers that Ashcroft was being unfairly pilloried because of his "respect for Confederate heritage" ... http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0118-09.htm

... It came from a 2001 speech in which Sotomayor said that "our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging" ... Republicans fervently seized upon the judge's 8-year-old quote. Not without reason, they saw a return of .. "identity politics" ... In fact, the ideas in that speech are backed up by her membership in the National Council of La Raza and her board service in the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, two Hispanic civil rights groups. Not incidentally, neither of these organizations is really supported by membership; they are top-down liberal power groups created by and supported by the Ford Foundation and even by the federal government and are, ironically, known for their anti-Americanism ... http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2009/06/03/geye03.ART_ART_06-03-09_A9_O1E2CC2.html?sid=101

Georgie Anne Geyer: Revealing melting pot myths
Studies show diversity increases isolation, distrust
08:41 AM CDT on Wednesday, August 15, 2007
... Multiculturalism – the notion that everyone is actually the same and will fit right in – is palpably absurd. It disrespects the new person, his history, his reality, his personality. Bringing in unlimited numbers of people disrespects the society into which they are coming – no society can absorb that many totally different peoples. Witness Europe and Islam. Witness California and its overwhelming Hispanic numbers. This becomes, then, no melting pot, but a boiling pot and a roiling sea of inassimilable numbers that leads to the breakdown and anomie of society ... http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-geyer_15edi.ART.State.Edition1.422e6c6.html

...who wants to hold on to political power forever.

Ortega is heading down the road of "President for Life" and there will be many here on the DU with authoritarian/statist instincts who will applaud such a move. To those who consider government to be the great transformer with a moral obligation to take care of everyone, the only question is who will storm the castle and deliver the goods for whom.

Witness what is happening in the UK. The recent strength of the BNP is coming not from Tory voters but from blue-collar core Labor constituencies. The BNP speaks to them because it wants to use government in their favor and against immigrants.

Statist/authoritarian attitudes can quickly morph from Left to Right, showing that both ends share a lot of political DNA. Many of those who support Ortega and what he is doing would, under the right circumstances, easily flip from Socialism to National Socialism.

(edited typo)

"The egging was part of a new trend of civil disobedience"

Please do explain what a "new trend" is?

Is Ollie North ghost writing this stuff :rofl:

(AP) – 18 hours ago

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The Nicaraguan Congress on Wednesday narrowly rejected an initiative to force a debate on whether to annul a hotly disputed court ruling allowing President Daniel Ortega to seek re-election ...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5izSvMI2A4EzwsWXZmUvoK8dHSd3QD9BKI2R02