Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, whose paramilitary forces are accused by human rights groups of having killed more than 300 protesters over the past three months, told CNN en Español and the Miami Herald in an interview over the weekend that he wants to “strengthen” the country’s mediation commission by adding international organizations in an effort to end the country’s bloodshed.
Ortega said he’s talking with the United Nations’ secretary general and the European Union to expand the current mediation commission, which is chaired by Nicaragua’s Roman Catholic Church Conference of Bishops.
The Conference of Bishops, whose leader, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, has strongly criticized the Ortega regime’s repression of anti-government protesters, would still be part of his proposed enlarged mediation effort, he said.
Read more at our news partner, the Miami Herald.