GUNMEN ATTACK NICARAGUAN CANDIDATE.Byline: Filadelfo Aleman Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Gunmen shot at leading presidential candidate Arnoldo Aleman on the campaign trail Thursday, missing him but killing a bodyguard and wounding three others. The attack happened in the remote mountain community of Wiwili, 200 miles north of the capital, said the interior minister, Sergio Narvaez. A Nicaraguan journalist covering the campaign said the 15 gunmen reportedly wore uniforms bearing the red-and-black insignia of the former Sandinista National Liberation Front National Liberation Front Title used by nationalist, usually socialist, movements in various countries since World War II. In Greece, the National Liberation Front-National Popular Liberation Army was a communist-sponsored resistance group that operated in occupied Greece army. Radio reports said authorities suspected former Sandinista soldiers. In more than 15 years of revolution and counterrevolution coun·ter·rev·o·lu·tion n. 1. A revolution whose aim is the deposition and reversal of a political or social system set up by a previous revolution. 2. A movement to oppose revolutionary tendencies and developments. in Nicaragua, weapons, uniforms and insignia have been used interchangeably for years. National Police Chief Cmdr. Fernando Caldera caldera: see crater. caldera Large, bowl-shaped volcanic depression that forms when the top of a volcanic cone collapses into the space left after magma is ejected during a violent volcanic eruption. The term is Spanish for “caldron. said the attackers had not been identified. The Sandinistas denounced the attack. But they have long opposed Aleman as a candidate in the Oct. 20 elections, saying an Aleman victory would be a throw-back to the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Anastasio Somoza may be: Nicaraguan presidents:
The attack was the first report of pre-election violence in a wide campaign field that includes hard-line rightists and Marxist-leaning Sandinistas. In addition to worries of pre-election attacks, Nicaraguan authorities are also concerned about the possibility of violence in connection with Pope John Paul Pope John Paul is the name of two Popes of the Roman Catholic Church:
Alarmed by a spate of bombings of Roman Catholic churches List of Roman Catholic Churches
Authorities did not suggest any links between Thursday's violence and the papal visit - John Paul II's first to Central America since Sandinista supporters heckled him during a 1993 tour. Aleman, a former Managua mayor, told Radio Corporacion he would not be cowed by the attack. "Nothing will keep me from the electoral campaign," he declared. Aleman, candidate of the conservative Liberal Constitutionalist con·sti·tu·tion·al·ism n. 1. Government in which power is distributed and limited by a system of laws that must be obeyed by the rulers. 2. a. A constitutional system of government. b. Party, was traveling in a vehicle in a caravan when a group of armed men attacked on foot. The shots killed one of about 15 national police officers assigned to guard Aleman, Caldera said. A popular conservative, Aleman helped Violeta Chamorro's coalition win the 1990 election that defeated President Daniel Ortega and his Sandinistas, who ruled in the 1980s. He was Managua mayor until mid-1995. Former Sandinista soldiers and former U.S.-backed Contra rebels continue to roam the north and are often blamed for attacks on residents and on one another. |
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