LAKSHMI SINGH, HOST:
To Nicaragua now, where there's been more civil unrest this past week. Protesters demanded the government release hundreds of people who've been detained in recent months. As many as 400 people have been arrested or have gone missing since President Daniel Ortega launched a crackdown on dissent. As a result, an estimated 23,000 Nicaraguans have fled their country and have requested asylum in neighboring Costa Rica. NPR's Carrie Kahn has been reporting from Nicaragua and she joins us now. Hi, Carrie.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Hi, Lakshmi.
SINGH: Where are you now?
KAHN: I'm in Managua.
SINGH: You're in Managua. OK, tell me - hundreds of people we know have been arrested so far. Who are they? And what have they been charged with?
KAHN: They're people from all sectors of society. They've been swept up in these wide-ranging arrests. They're students. They have been at the forefront of this opposition to Daniel Ortega. There are ordinary citizens - residents that have been identified as leaders of these barricades that went up in cities all over the country. Then there's the case of these two leaders of a farmers' union that has garnered a lot of attention here.
They were picked up last month in the airport as they were heading to the U.S. to attend a conference. And just this week, they were brought to a closed-door court proceeding and were paraded before cameras and charged with this new law that Ortega's controlled - Congress just passed. This law gives the government this wide range of charges for terrorist activities. And there is everything from destruction of private property, the use of force not in an armed conflict - the punishment for these crimes is 20 years in prison. The law's been widely condemned internationally. It's seen as a brutal crackdown on protesters.
SINGH: What's behind this? I mean, why is President Ortega doing this? Why has he responded like this?
KAHN: Well, the protests began quite benignly as a bunch of - against these taxes to the social security pension. And it just exploded into this sort of repressed frustration with the regime here. And so they just exploded. And the students were the ones that really took the charge here. The tax against the pensions - were going to affect mostly elderly people. So people were surprised that these students came out so strongly against this tax. And it just ballooned into a much wider and stronger outcry against Ortega.
There was a brief attempt at negotiations and the Catholic church stepped in to broker the talks, but they quickly collapsed. And then this wave of repression that we've been talking about just came in - stepped up attacks on opposition groups and these leaders of farm groups. And mostly the students have taken the brunt of this. And it's really just alarmed the population here and brought out this widespread opposition to Ortega and calls for him to step down.
SINGH: And, Carrie, thousands of Nicaraguans, as we know, are seeking asylum now in Costa Rica because of all of this. And I understand you have spoken with some of them. What have you heard? What have they told you?
KAHN: I spent yesterday in Costa Rica right at the border with Nicaragua. And there is a rudimentary camp of army tents that can hold about 20, 30 people in each that have been set up. There were only about 50 Nicaraguans there. But, you know, you have to remember that this isn't the first time Costa Rica's seen this many Nicaraguan refugees. They took in tens of thousands during the revolution in the '70s and then the U.S.-backed conflict in the '80s.
So many Nicaraguans have relatives in Costa Rica and go there. But at the camp, I talked to lots of people. Again, there were - there were people that had feared that they were going to be charged with this new terrorism law because they had manned and helped people with these barricades that had been set up in cities all over the country. I talked to these seven men that said they had escaped to the mountains when paramilitary pro-government fighters came looking for them in their homes.
I talked to another family that said they too were scared when paramilitaries showed up at their home. And the father had just helped with these barricades on a street outside Managua, and he was fearful that he was going to be arrested as a terrorist and had come to the camp.
SINGH: I imagine that security has become a major issue now for the Costa Rican government. What is your sense of what Costa Rica's saying about its ability to handle this influx of refugees?
KAHN: The government response has been to set up these camps for refugees coming across the border. And they've been dealing with influxes of refugees for the past several years. First there was a large wave of Cubans that came through, then there were Haitians and now the Nicaraguans. So the government has been accommodating to refugees for a while. Yesterday in the capital, there was a protest by anti-Nicaraguan demonstrators at a downtown park in San Jose, Costa Rica. There were scuffles between the demonstrators and some Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans upset about what they called xenophobic chants and songs by the demonstrators. Police stepped in. Forty-four people were arrested, and they've since closed down public access to the park.
SINGH: NPR's Carrie Kahn in Managua. Thank you very much, Carrie.
KAHN: Thank you so much. Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
