tortilla con sal

It's clearer than ever now why John Negroponte's sidekick from the dirty war in Honduras in the 1980s and from the brutal US occupation of Iraq, Robert J Callahan, was sent down to take over from Paul Trivelli as US ambassador to Nicaragua earlier this year.

The opposition parties evidently decided many months ago that, should they do badly in the municipal elections they would respond with accusations of fraud and use that as a pretext to provoke violence in the streets. As in Venezuela and in Bolivia, the objective is to create uncertainty and fear and thus to make people feel that the FSLN government cannot deliver stability and prosperity. This decision was probably taken long before the deliberately staged self-destruction of the Movimiento Renovador Sandinista as a legal political party whose purpose was to consolidate the vote in Managua for Eduardo Montealegre.

Radio La Primerísima reports opposition thugs being paid the equivalent of a week's wages for most people in Nicaragua - US$50 - to dress up as Sandinista activists and to attack agreed targets. La Primerísima names Enrique Quiñonez, Eduardo Montealegre's fellow candidate for the local elections in Managua, as one of the the main organizers of this violence.You can read the whole report here