Nicaragua’s President Ortega calls bishops ‘terrorists’

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Nicaragua’s increasingly isolated President Daniel Ortega has called Roman Catholic bishops “terrorists” and says many countries would have arrested them. Bishops participated as mediators in the short-lived first round of dialogue between the government and opposition in 2018, after which the government brutally put down the protests. Ortega slammed a pro-democracy plan submitted by Nicaragua’s council of bishops during those talks. Ortega said Monday that “the bishops signed that in the name of the terrorists, at the service of the Yankees … these bishops are also terrorists.” Ortega claims the widespread protests that erupted in April 2018 were an attempted coup with foreign backing.