Opposition Coalition in Nicaragua Asks Army to Take a Stand

The Blue and White National Unity coalition called on the Nicaraguan Army to issue a pronouncement “in the face of this grave situation and the need for a peaceful solution to the crisis we’re suffering.” The message was delivered via a letter addressed to Julio Cesar Aviles, head of the military institution. It was also critical of the army’s inaction in the face of the massacres perpetrated by Ortega and the use of armed paramilitary groups against the Nicaraguan people.

“The army has maintained an absolute silence before the exceptional and dramatic events that the people have suffered, such as “Operation Clean-up,” carried out over all the Nicaraguan territory, in an operation that we could say is still persisting,” the public letter complains.

“The passivity of your institution given the significance of the violent presence of irregular armed groups in the country, groups that have practically acted as an occupation force, surprised the country, since clearly you should be bound by the dictates of the Constitution,” the letter adds.

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The National Unity, made up of more than forty Nicaraguan organizations that condemn the massacres and the repression of Daniel Ortega’s and Rosario Murillo’s regime, also demands of Aviles and the Army that “a pronouncement be issued in your own course and manner, with the appropriate mechanisms you consider convenient, in the face of this grave situation and the need for a peaceful solution to the crisis we’re suffering.”

In the letter, the National Unity recalls that the Army has issued at least three communiques, in one of which the institution assured that “as we’ve always said, we’re the people themselves in uniform, working for their benefit, and consequently we call for a cessation of violence and of the actions that are destabilizing us.”  Nonetheless, their last communication was in May, weeks before the massacre at the march in solidarity with the mothers of those killed by the regime, held on Nicaraguan Mothers’ Day.

In Article 92 of the Constitution it states that the “Army of Nicaragua is the armed institution dedicated to the defense of our sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.”  Nonetheless, the National Unity criticized the fact that the institution has been silent about the crisis, clarifying that they aren’t waiting for their political opinion but for their response according to the Constitution regarding the violent and irregular events.