insurrection against Ortega was "touching God with dirty hands"

Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo said Friday that the popular insurrection of 2018 against her husband, President Daniel Ortega, and in which hundreds of protesters died, was like "touching God with dirty hands."

"This Nicaragua that advances from an economic model (...) that has allowed us to advance in the restoration of the good directions that we brought, those good directions that dared to destroy, is like touching God with dirty hands," he said Murillo, through government media.

In April 2018, after 11 consecutive years of the Sandinista Government, hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans took to the streets to demand the resignation of Ortega, who was blamed for the deaths of more than 20 young people, mostly students, at the beginning of anti-government protests.

In the following months the demonstrations became massive, and were almost annulled with armed attacks against mass demonstrations or selective executions against opponents, according to the Special Follow-up Mechanism for Nicaragua (Meseni), attached to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) .

The attacks left hundreds dead, imprisoned or missing, and tens of thousands began fleeing the country claiming threats from the Police and the so-called "Sandinista mobs."

According to Murillo, the good performance of the Nicaraguan economy under the Government of her husband corresponded to "the will of God, were precisely the results of a Christian plan, solidary, of a preferential option for the majority."

The rejection of Ortega broke out after a series of social and tax reforms that, in combination with the weekly increase in the price of fuels, devalued the purchasing power of workers, and reduced their hopes of having a pension after retirement.

The social outbreak against Ortega caused Nicaragua's economy to grow from more than 4% annually, to a contraction of -3.8% and an inflation of 3.89% in 2018, and a decline of -3.5 % with an inflation of 6.13% in 2019.

"That road we were bringing, a blessed, successful, victorious road, was altered interrupted, by terrorism, vandalism, which, thank God, also by the will of the majority of Nicaraguans have been left behind, except for a few speaking crazy things," he said the vice president, not to mention the opposition, which demands the return of democracy.

Murillo said that her husband's, who has been in power for 13 consecutive years, is "a deeply democratic model."

A total of between 328 and 684 people, including several foreigners, have died in Nicaragua, in a crisis that has extended for 21 months, according to national and international human rights organizations.

Both the IACHR, as well as the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Acnud), have blamed the violence on the Government of Ortega, who explained that it defends itself against a "failed coup d'etat."

"We cannot allow grievances or offenses from anyone, because it belongs to everyone," Murillo warned. "We are moving forward in our hate-free Nicaragua," he added.

Nicaragua was not experiencing a bloody crisis from 1980 to 1990, also with Ortega in the Presidency.