Anger, Desperation Linger After Battle in Nicaragua : Unrest: Many in Esteli accuse army of overreacting to insurgents. President Chamorro defends firm response.

As angry Nicaraguans buried their dead Friday, one thing was clear: this week’s warfare between insurgents and government troops had subsided, but the disputes and desperation that ignited the nation’s worst political violence in years remained as fresh as the graves in this city’s crowded cemetery.

More than 150 people were killed or wounded in 24 hours of combat after the insurgents--mostly former members of the Sandinista Peoples’ Army--seized this northern town and looted supermarkets and banks. The army fought back, driving the rebels out but failing to capture their leader.

There were numerous civilian casualties and signs that the toll was even higher than the government first admitted.

The political fallout for the weak and beleaguered government of President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro is likely to be devastating. Unable to pacify the country three years after a decade-long civil war ended, her government’s policies have only plunged Nicaraguans deeper into poverty.

“It is pitiful that events like Esteli continue to occur,” said Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, a longtime negotiator in Nicaraguan conflicts. “Nicaragua has been bloodied by two wars, in which many young men and women died. We must make a great effort to avoid getting trapped in another civil war.”

Many residents of Esteli, a traditional bastion of Sandinista support, blamed the violence Wednesday and Thursday on the government’s failings and accused the army of exaggerated force. It was a bitter awakening for some: The army is still controlled by perhaps the most powerful Sandinista in Nicaragua, Gen. Humberto Ortega.

“How could the army have turned on people who are fighting things like hunger, unemployment, misery?” asked Nidia Medina, a former army medic who now cleans the streets for the Esteli sanitation department.

“The ideology has changed. Now the army is repressing the people. . . . How can Gen. Ortega call (the insurgents) bandits, delinquents, using the same words as Somoza?”

Dictator Anastasio Somoza and his family ruled Nicaragua for decades until he was overthrown in 1979 in a rebellion led by the Sandinista Front, then a feisty Marxist guerrilla army. The Sandinistas governed the country and fought a war with U.S.-backed Contras throughout most of the 1980s. They lost elections to Chamorro in 1990.

The insurgents who occupied Esteli were demanding that the government make good on offers of land, jobs and credit promised when the war ended.

Medina, the former medic, was one of dozens of former army officers and combatants who gathered in Esteli’s downtown plaza Friday, denouncing the deaths of their one-time comrades and the way the government handled the crisis.

“The government is responsible for this whole thing,” said Rafael Escorsa, a member of the crowd who, like many, is out of work. “The army didn’t give a damn about the people.”

Noel Ponce, a teacher and city councilman for the Sandinista Front, stood on the front steps of City Hall, watching the crowd in the plaza. As a pickup truck carrying four coffins passed by, he sought to shift the blame not to the Sandinista-controlled army but to an uncaring government.

“This was a disaster,” he said, shaking his head. “It was an error for (the rebel forces) to come into the town. But it was a greater error for the government to respond the way it did.

“I ask the government, what did it gain with this? Did the lives of children and so many people serve to transform the social and economic conditions of the country?”

Sandinista politicians are eager to distance themselves from Chamorro’s government--even though she allowed them to retain key posts after her electoral victory. Sandinistas control the army, police and intelligence networks.

Chamorro responded angrily Friday to the criticism being leveled at her government for the Esteli violence. She blamed the episode on prominent Sandinista leader and former President Daniel Ortega, brother of the army chief, who earlier in the week encouraged “popular mobilization” by those fed up with the government.

“They have been telling me for three years now that I am weak, that I am useless, and that force is required,” Chamorro said. “Well, they are going to be forced to put down their guns because what we want is peace and tranquillity.”

Since the war ended, groups of disgruntled former Contras and former soldiers have periodically rearmed themselves, staging minor attacks on rural police stations and remote electricity plants.

The insurgents, led by a former Sandinista army major, did not expect that today’s Sandinista People’s Army would counterattack as forcefully as it did Thursday. They expected the government would quickly agree to negotiations--a standard Chamorro response.

They also expected massive popular support when they entered Esteli. This did not materialize.

The army said two civilians, two soldiers and 41 rebels were killed in the fighting. However, Esteli Mayor Ulisis Gonzalez said Friday that about 26 civilians were killed. That number could not be confirmed. In one two-block stretch near downtown Esteli, reporters counted five wakes in progress.

At the cemetery, city workers were digging a large common grave, large enough to hold 30 bodies, according to human rights monitors.

At the one-room home of Francisco Molina Perez, his family wept over his body. He was caught in the cross-fire Thursday when he left home to visit his mother.

“People want nothing to do with any of this,” sobbed Maritza Perez. a relative. “People are dying of hunger. We don’t want war.”