6 de enero 2019
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The Nicaraguan Police captured at least four people in Masaya on the afternoon of January 3, following a strong deployment of riot police and paramilitary forces. Residents of that city affirmed that the heavily armed men of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo broke into a number of homes and stole the owner’s belongings.
The police siege was centered in the Masaya neighborhoods known as “Fox” and “San Juan” around 2:30 in the afternoon. They were rapid attacks on selected homes and resulted in the detention of Wilfredo Brenes Dominguez, 39, and three members of one family: Karla Escobar Maldonado, 40; Fernando Escobar Maldonado, 33 and Ramon Javier Cerrato, 57.
Those detained were taken to the cells of the feared El Chipote interrogation jail in Managua.
Petrona Dominguez, mother of Wilfredo Brenes, stated that the invaders beat her son brutally while the police screamed at him, “to turn over the weapons” in his possession. However, after going through the entire house, the officiers found nothing and merely proceeded to load the man into a waiting patrol car.
A number of Masaya residents told Confidencial that some 15 pick-up trucks full of riot police presided over Thursday’s selective raids. However, such police incursions have been occurring for months in Masaya; they intensified again on January 2nd with the detention of Keneth Martinez Gaitan, 29.
The motive behind the police harassment seems to be the homemade Molotov cocktails that rebellious citizens set off beginning December 20 in different points across Masaya, including the police station. The detonations that occurred in the early hours of the morning roused the officers and the paramilitary to form groups to canvass the neighborhoods.
El Lobo [“The Wolf”], one of Masaya’s rebel leaders, stated: “we continue in active resistance.” “We don’t forget and we’re not going to remain this way, and that’s why we’re setting off these bombs in a coordinated fashion,” he affirmed.
El Lobo forms part of the “Marcelo Mayorga Column” which together with the indigenous resistance from Monimbo is behind the anti-dictatorship graffiti that has begun to appear in the city.
Masaya is one of the cities hardest hit by the Ortega-Murillo repression. Some 35 people were killed in that city after the resistance had fenced off the police for several weeks. From July on, when the police and paramilitary brutally retook the city, they’ve continued to maintain a close watch on the Monimbo neighborhood.
