MANAGUA, Nicaragua _ Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, whose paramilitary forces are accused by human rights groups of having killed more than 300 protesters over the past three months, said in an interview over the weekend that he wants to "strengthen" the country's mediation commission by adding international organizations in an effort to end the country's bloodshed.
Ortega said he's talking with the United Nations secretary-general and the European Union to expand the mediation commission, which is chaired by Nicaragua's Roman Catholic Church Conference of Bishops.
The Conference of Bishops, whose leader, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, has strongly criticized the Ortega regime's repression of anti-government protesters, would still be part of his proposed enlarged mediation effort, he said.
"We have been in touch with the Secretary General of the United Nations and different international organizations, and obviously with Cardinal Brenes," Ortega said. "We're searching for ways to strengthen the dialogue commission."
Ortega spoke in an interview with CNN en Espanol and the Miami Herald.
Ortega's proposal may be a new gambit to win time and weaken the role of the bishops in the talks. But a stronger role for the U.N., the European Union and the Organization of American States could put added international pressure on Ortega to allow early elections with an independent electoral tribunal and credible international observers.
Ortega, who has been in power since 2007, was last re-elected in a dubious 2016 election. Much like in Venezuela, he allows some independent media with limited audiences and smaller political parties, but only as long as they don't threaten his hold on power.
During the interview, which took place at Ortega's residence in Managua, the president seemed eager to convince the world that Nicaragua is getting back to normal after months of political violence _ even though hotels in the city are virtually empty and many flights in and our of the city are only half full. Thousands of opposition protesters and pro-government counter-demonstrators marched on the streets Saturday.
On Friday night, the InterContinental hotel's two restaurants and several bars _ which in normal times are packed on the weekends _ looked like a scene from a ghost town. A taxi driver said he had one passenger after five hours, and said that may be his only ride of the day.
Ortega, who until last week had not given a major interview in nearly a decade, probably also wanted to use the occasion to dispute the number of casualties cited by human rights organizations.
The Organization of American States' highly respected Human Rights Commission has documented nearly 300 deaths, and Nicaragua's Pro-Human Rights Association puts the figure at 440, with thousands of wounded.
OAS Human Rights Commission head Paulo Abrao said recently that more than 90 percent of the people killed in Nicaragua's ongoing violence were murdered by Ortega's police-backed paramilitary forces. Asked about that, Ortega responded: "He's a liar."
Ortega claimed that the number of dead is only 195, and asserted that human rights groups are tracking only reported deaths, without verifying them. Abrao said the names of 212 of the dead were supplied by the Ortega government, which then stopped sharing data with human rights groups in mid-June. "They are now reducing their own list of deaths in the confrontations," Abrao said.
Ortega also claimed that the hooded paramilitary shooters who have attacked protesters may be opposition "terrorists." When shown pictures of hooded men with AK-47 rifles waving flags of Ortega's ruling party, he said that they were probably fake pictures or police agents who were defending themselves from alleged opposition attacks.
