Nicaragua's Violent Protests Have Killed 241 So Far

TeleSur 

On Thursday, police captured three men traveling to the ongoing protests carrying four containers of ammunition for AK-47 rifles. 

According to a new report for the Nicaraguan Truth Commission, violent protests that have shaken the country since April have killed at least 241 people so far – one of several conflicting death tolls released in recent days.

Nearly half of the deaths, a total of 110, occurred in the capital city of Managua, in districts one and seven. Masaya, Carazo, Leon, Esteli and Matagalpa have also reported high levels of violence.

The report breaks down deaths by occupation, with 65 considered 'self-employed,' 49 listed as 'workers,' 31 unemployed and 18 police.

Almost three months of demonstrations demanding the resignation of President Ortega have left over 260 people dead in the bloodiest protests since Nicaragua's civil war drew to in an end in 1990, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) said July 11.

Meanwhile, the NGO Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (Anpdh) reports that as many as 351 demonstrators have died, while at least 2,100 have been injured in the last three months.

On Thursday, police captured three men traveling to protests, carrying four containers of ammunition for AK-47 rifles. The men, all in their twenties, will be charged with terrorism, organized crime, and illegal possession of weapons.

The arrests were made at a police checkpoint in Nindiri. The police were searching for people perpetuating the violent acts in the country, continuing the wave of violence that has rocked Nicaragua since April.

The Face of Empire in Latin America (Part 1)

New Eastern Outlook

In his landmark post-colonial work Culture and Imperialism, the world renowned public intellectual and critical theorist Edward Said wrote, “Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings.”

Here, Said is highlighting a fundamental aspect of the hegemony of the Western imperial system in the late 20^th and early 21^st Centuries: the need for dominance over the physical, political, and discursive space. Specifically, Said argued correctly that contemporary imperialism seeks far more than simply control over land and resources – it seeks a monopoly on information, ideology, and language.

Nowhere is this fact more apparent than in what used to be considered the United States’ imperial backyard: Latin America. The untimely death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the great unifier of Latin America in the 21^st Century, did little to stem the tide of independence from US political and economic institutions. In fact, it seems that the independent-minded leaders of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and other countries in the region, have followed Chavez’s lead in retaking control over their nations’ futures. From the expulsion of US military and intelligence forces, to Latin American governments’ taking on powerful multinational corporations, indications that the region is more independent than ever before are now unmistakable.

And so, it is against this backdrop that Washington attempts to reassert its control either directly through its military, or indirectly through destabilizations using a vast array of weapons of “soft power.” It is precisely this “soft power” – the ability to influence events using non-military, non-coercive means – that is at the forefront of the US strategy to maintain hegemony in Latin America. Taken in tandem, Washington’s cocktail of hard and soft power is at the root of the US’s Latin American policy today.

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Was Former DEA Agent Jailed for Exposing ATF Arms Trafficking?

Narcosphere

Iran/Contra-Era Whistleblower Cele Castillo Alleged in 2008 That Federal Agents Were Helping to Smuggle Guns into Mexico

Cele Castillo, a former DEA agent who blew the whistle on the CIA-backed arms-for-drugs trade used to prop up the 1980s Contra counter-insurgency in Nicaragua, is now sitting in a federal prison for what may well be another act of whistleblowing in this century.

Before Castillo reported to the federal pen in July 2009, where he is now stuck until April 2012, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons records, he shared with this reporter a series of revelations concerning arms trafficking and what he thought were corrupt ATF agents.

Those revelations, now some three years old, dovetail in great detail with the still unfolding ATF Fast and Furious operation, in which federal ATF agents allowed thousands of high-powered weapons purchased by criminal operatives at U.S. gun stores to be smuggled into Mexico unimpeded.

And Fast and Furious, as recent news reports have revealed, was not the first such operation put in play by U.S. federal law enforcement agencies. A similar “gun-walking” tactic was employed by ATF in 2006 and 2007 under the Bush administration through a program known as Operation Wide Receiver.

Castillo’s case, which involved allegations that he purchased and sold firearms illegally, was largely ignored by the mainstream media, though Narco News reported extensively on it and Castillo’s contention that he had been framed and was the victim of prosecutorial misconduct. [Past coverage at this link.]

At the time, as he was going through the buzz-saw line that is the federal judicial system, Castillo told Narco News that he was likely being targeted because of his role in exposing the CIA-backed effort to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua some 25 years earlier, or possibly because he had evidence of corruption within the ATF. But in truth, Castillo really didn’t know what direction the assault was coming from or why he was being targeted.

Now, though, in light of the exposure of ATF’s Fast and Furious, it seems the question needs to be asked:

Did Castillo, well before Fast and Furious came to light this year, rip back the curtain on a long-running U.S.-government sanctioned program to supply illegal arms to paramilitary units supported by the Mexican military — units charged with clandestinely carrying out the dirty work of the drug war in Mexico?

The answer to the question should matter to all of us, because that “war” has cost the lives of more than 50,000 Mexican citizens since it was launched in late 2006 under the reign of Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Well, here’s what Castillo told Narco News in late 2008, some three years before news of Fast and Furious and Operation Wide Receiver starting making headlines in the mainstream news:

During the [Mexican] presidential elections, El Chapo [Joaquin Guzman Loera, the leader of the Sinaloa drug organization] supported [Mexican president] Calderon. Calderon then rented the military to El Chapo to take out Osiel [Cardenas Guillen, head of the rival Gulf Cartel]. Keep in the back of your mind: why has Chapo never been arrested? Calderon took back the military and is now working hand-in-hand with El Chapo.
… The majority of the guns that are going into Mexico from the gun shows are going to the The Mexican paramilitary unit out of Monterrey, Mexico. … A Mexican military captain, "El Capi," is doing all the purchases. 
…. These people are part of President Calderon's people who control the drug trade into the U.S. There is an ATF agent … who works with these people.

Castillo, at the time, assumed the ATF agent, actually two of them that he identified, were on the take, not part of an officially sanctioned U.S. operation. But events that have unfolded since 2008 open that assumption up to a possible different interpretation.

Castillo, who never lost his investigative edge, said in 2008 that some of his information was coming from a U.S. government informant, who was later murdered. In addition, he claimed a notorious prison gang, the Texas Syndicate, was working with the supposedly corrupt ATF agents to assure the gun-trafficking into Mexico remained protected from law enforcement intervention.

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