Max Blumenthal, July 19th 2018
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1020027741679349761.html
Today’s the 39 anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. Managua is out to celebrate the apparent defeat of a soft coup that paralyzed #Nicaragua. I’m here to document a side of the story omitted by Western media. A thread follows on some of what I’ve learned. Vid & print later.
Yesterday I visited Radio Ya, private leftist radio station that is top rated in Managua and supplied social services to locals regardless of their politics. It was burned to the ground by the opposition. 22 staffers escaped with their lives. 
Staff of @nuevaya work out of a small makeshift office now. Those working the night shift must sleep in to avoid right-wing violence. “We are hunted by hit men,” station director Denis Schwartz told me. Its sports reporters were recently accosted by gunmen on motorcycles. 
.@nuevaya’s Schwartz told me he informed the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights about the torching of his station by opposition militants and they ignored him. He said me & my colleagues @danielmkovalik & @ThomasHedgesTRN are the first Western reporters to interview him.
Nicaragua’s armed opposition burned down this cooperative bank, which serves Managua’s poor & working class and is named for Hugo Chavez. The records and accounts of ~100k people are now in jeopardy. A targeted campaign of violence has been waged against the public sector. 
