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Civilian organizations, political and press on Wednesday accused the police of a double standard regarding the interests of president Daniel Ortega, for not offering to guarantee security for an opposition march scheduled for Saturday after intimidating threats from Sandanista groups were made.
The accusations are directed at the chief of the National Police, Aminta Granera, a popular ex-guerilla who assumed the position in 2006 with the desire to improve the organization, and who was someone who became closely tied with Ortega after assuming the presidency in 2007.
"Aminta Doubletalker", "Aminta Tainted", read the headlines of major newspapers, La Prensa and El Nuevo Diario, while some promoters of the march placed in doubt the promises of police protection in the face of violent aggressions suffered recently within view of riot police in previous demonstrations.
The police chief is on a political cross, trying to "maintain the peace and protect the citizens" between strong pressures, admitted the vice president of the republic, Jaime Morales.
Some suspicions arose after the police not only authorized the Sandanistas to protest the same day and on the same streets in the southeast of the captitol in which the opposition had requested to march, but even asked the opposition to change their route onto adjacent streets to "avoid confrontations".
It appears that Ortega gave "direct orders to the chief of police to deny permission to representatives of civil society about the requested route," denounced the head of the Permanent Commission on Human Rights, Marcos Carmona.
"They want to stick us on a tiny street from which anyone can throw a bomb from a house and there are no means to protect us or catch the guilty ones," speculated opposition politcal commentator, Jaime Arellano.
According to reports given to the press supposedly by ex-Sandanistas, the governing Sandanista Front (FSLN, Left) plans to mobilize blocking groups formed by gangs, so as to attack the opposition marchers on secondary streets and in neighborhood strongholds in its' path.
The "alternate route" proposed by police is dangerous, remarked Ana Quiros, director of one of the 600 non-governmental civic organizations which will participate in the opposition march.
After some talk, the organizers of the opposition march this Tuesday accepted a partial route modification after the police agreed to deploy 3,560 agents, 450 members of the riot brigade, and 169 motorized officers to separate the two marches.
With these promises, civil and politcal organizations confirmed their decsion to march on Saturday to countervene the re-election plans of Ortega and reiterate their repudiation of the supposed fraud of the 2008 municipal elections, which was won by the officialists.
The Sandanistas, for their part, have called their parties to march in defense of the government, after an intense get-out the march media campaign, despite the climate of fear and insecurity caused in the past few days by the proliferation of armed gangs in some neighborhoods.
The Vice President of the Republic dismissed the possibility of serious violence. "It's possible that sanity and composure will prevail," he said.