The escalating regime change violence in the Central American country of Nicaragua has thrown the future of Daniel Ortega's presidency into doubt.
The former Sandinista rebel leader is facing his greatest challenge yet since returning to office in 2007 after having previously presided over Nicaragua following the 1979 Revolution up until the end of the Cold War. Armed groups originally took to the streets in April to supposedly “protest” a political issue involving social security reform, though they quickly resorted to killing police officers and calling for the toppling of the government after initiating a few provocations against the authorities in order to craft the pretext for “legitimizing” their demands.
The fast-moving events saw the government walk back on its reform plans as a de-escalation measure, but this inadvertently emboldened the regime change militants to press ahead with their cause after sensing what they interpreted to be state weakness. Complicating matters even further is that various international NGOs have been reportedly involved in organizing the unrest, which might end up being used to “justify” future US sanctions under the so-called “Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act” (NICA) of 2017. From the looks of it, the US might be planning to transplant the Venezuelan Hybrid War template onto Nicaragua in order to overthrow yet another multipolar…
