Versión Español
Español Five people died and 24 were wounded on Sunday in Nicaragua. In separate attacks, unidentified gunmen attacked two buses that were carrying supporters of Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). The passengers were returning from a commemoration of the power grab by the Sandinistas, following the ousting of the Anastasio Somoza dictatorship on July 19, 1979.
“The worst attack happened on the Pan-American Highway at around 1 a.m. Sunday in a community known as Las Calabazas. Two men and two women died from bullet wounds,” said Zadrach Zeledon, mayor of Matagalpa and an FSLN member. The other attack took place north of Matagalpa, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of the Nicaraguan capital of Managua, where one man was killed.
The until now unknown Armed Forces of the National Salvation — Army of the People (FASN-EP), an alleged anti-Sandinista guerrilla, admitted responsibility for the attacks. According to a press release published by the group, they acknowledge responsibility, and they state that regular people “don’t have to fear any oppressor. In the struggle for liberation there is no place for errors … This is just the tip of the operations that we have coordinated at a national level,” they added.
Nicaraguan authorities arrested four people in relation to the attack.
“We have all been violated as a great Nicaraguan family; we have all been attacked,” said the first lady and spokesman for the Sandinista government Rosario Murillo.
The victims of the first attack are Vilma Gómez (48), Esther Gómez Barrera (28), Germán Adrián Martínez Méndez (24), and Yader Francisco Sáenz Potoy (22). In the second attack, 20-year-old Yeltsin Talavera Galeano was the only one to die.
This weekend, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, alongside Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, rallied supporters at the commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. The 68-year-old Ortega is facing criticism himself, after opposition members said that the constitutional reforms passed earlier this year are part of his plan to become president for life. The Sandinista leader, president since 2007, has expressed interest in seeking a new term in 2016.
Source: Voice of America.
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