TEHRAN, July 30 - Humberto Ortega, the former head of Nicaragua's military, has urged his brother, President Daniel Ortega, to disband the pro-government paramilitary forces blamed for deadly violence in months of unrest.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - He made the comments in a TV interview broadcast late on Friday on a CNN En Espanol program.
"If the government has a profound sense of responsibility, in the first place it should end the presence of these armed people," who act "as if they were a military or police authority", he said.
More than 300 people have been killed in Nicaragua in over three months of unrest, which began when the government proposed reducing pension benefits to ease budgetary pressures. Though the plan was later dropped, it provoked large demonstrations and calls for Ortega to step down.
The anti-government protests have been brutally countered by police and armed pro-government paramilitaries.
Rights groups say more than 2,000 people have been wounded since mid-April.
Humberto Ortega blamed the armed irregular forces for many of the deaths of protesters.
"We cannot accept the existence of parapolice or paramilitary forces," he told CNN, complaining that the paramilitaries "operate openly next to national police".
He also highlighted the government's responsibility in violence.
"Here we have to point out that the main responsible for the situation we are living in is the state of Nicaragua, and the state of Nicaragua has a government, and the government should have taken all measures to not reach to this bloodshed," he added.
On Friday, eight public hospital doctors said that they had been fired after violating alleged orders not to treat wounded anti-government protesters.
Source: Aljazeera
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