ELECTION RIOT IN NICARAGUA

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31276, 24 January 1967, Page 13

ELECTION RIOT IN NICARAGUA

Police Fire On Demonstrators (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) MANAGUA (Nicaragua), January 23. Troops last night opened fire on a crowd of about 50,000 people demanding guarantees of non-violence and non-interference by the armed forces in Nicaragua’s current presidential campaign. There were heavy casualties. An unknown number, reported to be as high as 20, were killed. El Retiro Hospital near the scene of the shooting said it was treating about 50 wounded people.

The Nicaraguan Red Cross said all its ambulances were sent out to pick up the wounded.

Infuriated by the shooting, the crowd swarmed through the main streets of Managua. A number of fires were reported to have been set The crowd set fire to a car ■nd turned back firemen when they arrived to extinguish the blaze. Snipers also appeared, it is reported. The violence started from a demonstration against the candidacy of General Anastasio Somoza, chief of the National Guard (the armed forces) in the February 5 presidential election. The Somoza family has dominated the republic’s political life for many years. The general’s father was President for 19 years and his brother, Luis, for seven years. Stable Rule

This was the first outbreak of violence in Nicaragua in. many years of stable rule under the Somozas. But there has been rising opposition to the candidacy of a third member of the family to become President “No more Somozas, no

more assassinations,” was the slogan on one placard carried by the crowd. The Government rushed reinforcements into the city as the snipers rejected demands to surrender and kept firing with automatic weapons. Two fires raged in the city. It was unofficially reported

that Government forces had also suffered some casualties. Nicaragua is a small Central American country mainly devoted to cotton and coffee growing. Its 57,000 square miles are thinly populated and the last census in 1964 gave the population as about 1.5 million.