The United Nations sharply criticized Nicaragua’s leftist government over its heavy-handed crackdown on opposition protesters Tuesday — a day after the Trump administration began pulling U.S. diplomats from country amid unrest that has left dozens dead.
Demonstrations against a major pension reform push by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega have resulted in chaotic clashes with security forces that saw at least 27 people killed in recent days.
“We are particularly concerned that a number of these deaths may amount to unlawful killings,” U.N. High Commissioner For Human Rights spokeswoman Liz Throssel said Tuesday.
“We call on the Nicaraguan authorities to ensure that there are prompt, thorough, independent and transparent investigations into these deaths,” Ms. Throssel said in remarks posted on the Geneva-based U.N. rights office’s website.
The call for an investigation comes after Washington shut down routine operations at the American embassy in Nicaragua on Monday, ordering some of its diplomats out of the facility in response to the violence.
The move came as the State Department also raised the travel threat level alert on Nicaragua, warning U.S. citizens to “reconsider” any plans to visit the tiny Central American nation, where Mr. Ortega — a former Marxist icon turned political power broker — swept to a third consecutive term in office two years ago.
Opposition groups, who called the 2016 election a farce have been bristling in Nicaragua since, expressing particular frustration that Mr. Ortega chose his own wife, Rosario Murillo, as the country’s vice president.
U.S. Ambassador Michael Kozak, the senior official in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor said last week that the Nicaraguan election was “a sham” and asserted the country “is going in the wrong direction on many fronts.”
“It’s a long litany of torture [and] extrajudicial killing,” Mr. Kozak told reporters on releasing the department’s annual country reports on human rights, which outlined abuses around the world, but was notably critical of the situation in Nicaragua.
“The Ortega government has basically shut down a lot of the opposition, a lot of the independent civil society organizations as well as the free media,” Mr. Kozak said.
The State Department warning Monday, meanwhile, said “political rallies and demonstrations are occurring daily, often with little notice or predictability” and that “some protests result in injuries and deaths.”
“Demonstrations typically elicit a strong response that has in the past included includes the use of tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and live ammunition against participants and occasionally have devolved into looting, vandalism and acts of arson,” the warning said.
The latest violence has be spiked by horrific scenes, one of the more grisly of which came when journalist Angel Gahona was shot dead while on camera during a Facebook Live broadcast he was conducting of a night-time protest in the town of Bluefields on Nicragua’s Carribbean coastline.
Dark footage showing Mr. Gahona falling suddenly to the ground after a gunshot rang out near the main government building in the town spread rapidly around Nicaraguan social and local media spaces over the weekend.
News wires have reported that the protests grew from public anger over an Ortega government push to increase worker contributions to the country’s social security system, while simultaneously lowering pensions offered by the system.
While Mr. Ortega said Sunday that he was withdrawing the proposed changes, the unrest has continued. The U.N. rights office said Tuesday that at least one police officer was among those who died in the clashes.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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