When Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega overthrew the country's Somoza dictatorship in 1979, Sergio Ramirez was standing by his side. Now, the poet and novelist is among Ortega's most vocal critics, saying the thirst for power has changed him. 'If someone says 'I'm staying no matter what' they have to crash into a wall of reality that usually gets stained with blood because that is not natural in a democratic system and that's what's happening in Nicaragua'. The Central American country has been in extreme disarray since April when students took to the streets in the capital, Managua, to protest the government's failure to handle forest fires in one of the country's most protected areas. Two days later, numbers swelled as plans to cut pensions and other social security reforms were announced and protests morphed into calls for the country's ageing leader to resign. 'I think that it's like the power of a dam that has been broken with the water ... people have suffered many grievances. All the fear that's been created, the social control in neighbours, much like Venezuela, much like Cuba,' he says. 'All these things began to create feelings of rejection and weariness ... a feeling of having had enough that was in the mouths of many people and was waiting to just explode.' Ortega responded with a brutal crackdown, allegedly using paramilitary groups to put down protests. He, and his wife and vice president blame the protests on so-called 'terrorists' and have refused calls for an early election to defuse the crisis. According to the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights, some 448 people have been killed since protests began, many are university students who have been a key force in the demonstrations. Ramirez is critical of Ortega's response, saying the levels of violence are worse than during the Sandinista revolution. 'These are unarmed casualties, people who are being per