Hundreds of students protest, attack Nicaraguan legislature

The explosives caused only minor damage when they were thrown at the building that houses the Congress, said lawmaker Francisco Aguirre.

But Aguirre said that if they had been used in a street demonstration, which both the ruling party and opposition groups are planning for Saturday, “they certainly could kill a person.”

Students on Tuesday marched to the legislature building to oppose government plans to cut funding for public universities as set out in the draft budget for 2010, said National Universities Council leader Telemaco Talavera.

Meanwhile, groups for and against President Daniel Ortega traded insults and claimed the right to demonstrate this weekend on the same stretch of road where thousands of people will square off with the likelihood of violence.

Pro-government groups said they will muster 100,000 people in support of the leftist president, while opposition leaders speak of “sinister plots” by authorities to arm their followers with rocks, clubs and bombs so they can use them against dissenters.

The tension has been building since the ruling Sandinista party's crushing win in mayoral elections a year ago, which the opposition charged were riddled with fraud, and a Supreme Court ruling last month that cleared the way for Ortega to seek reelection in 2011.

Sandinista union leader Gustavo Porras said everybody has the right to demonstrate, as long as it is clear that the opposition's “will be a march of thieves and corrupt people.”

Opposition groups have complained to authorities for allowing the two demonstrations to take place Saturday at the same time and place, while business leaders have appealed to Ortega to personally ask that his followers change the timing of their march.

Pro-Nicaragua Movement official Violeta Granera told AFP that Porras' provocative comments were meant to intimidate anti-government demonstrators, adding that bus and truck drivers have been warned not to ferry people to the protest march.

“The government thinks it not only owns the streets but the whole country. We're going to march, which will be orderly and peaceful.

“We won't allow ourselves to fall into violence because we're not only after ending the (Ortega) dictatorship and rescue democracy, but also breaking the vicious circle of violence” gripping the country, she added.

Ortega led the 1979 Sandinista uprising that ousted the regime of US-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza, after 45 years of oppressive rule.

Ortega, who served as president from 1985-1990, was elected to office again in 2006.

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