As dictators go President Anastasio Somoza Debayle of Nicaragua was among the worst.

For 43 years the Somoza family had ruthlessly ruled over this Central American country until they were overthrown in the now famous revolution carried out by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1978-79.

One day back in the early 80s in the wake of that revolution, I listened as a small group or ordinary Nicaraguans in the capital, Managua, told me about what life was like under Somoza’s brutal rule.

They spoke of paramilitary death squads, torture and how their autocratic leader had once said: “I don’t want an educated population; I want oxen.”

Somoza and his cadres I was to learn, quite literally bled Nicaraguan citizens like those I spoke with to death, the president and his son being both part owners of a company called Plasmaferesis.

This was a business that collected blood plasma from up to 1,000 of Nicaragua’s poorest people every day for sale in the United States and Europe.

The homeless, the alcoholics, the desperately poor went to sell half a litre for a few Nicaraguan cordobas in order to survive, while Somoza and his family pocketed the vast profits from the exported blood plasma.

It’s hardly surprising then that when the socialist Sandinista revolutionaries finally ousted the Somocista, few Nicaraguans mourned the family’s passing.

Fast forward almost forty years though and today it is the once heroic leader of that same revolution and now himself president, Daniel Ortega, that stands accused of brutality and gross human rights violations.

Just these past days the UN Human Rights Office has issued a damning report accusing Mr Ortega’s government of turning turned a blind eye to violations between April 18 and August 18, including the disproportionate use of force, extrajudicial killings by the Nicaraguan police, disappearances, widespread arbitrary detentions and instances of torture and sexual violence in detention centres.

“Repression and retaliation against demonstrators continue in Nicaragua as the world looks away,” UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said in a statement.

For its part the Nicaraguan government has issued a strong rebuttal to the report, insisting as it has done for some time, that the UN had ignored violence aimed at overthrowing a democratically elected government.

Turmoil in Nicaragua, which is among the Western hemisphere’s poorest countries, began in April after President Ortega announced austerity measures including cuts in social security benefits.

But tensions and frustration within the country have been building for years over Mr Ortega’s stubborn hold on power.

Among many of the country’s citizens there is the widespread perception that much like the Somoza dictatorship that Mr Ortega and his Sandinista revolution ousted, the latest president his family and cronies, have likewise been busy enriching themselves at the country’s expense.

To many outside Nicaragua watching current developments there are fears that the country is moving in the same political trajectory as Venezuela, where there too President Nicolas Maduro has responded to opposition protests with an “an iron fist”.

Above all though it’s the dramatic rise in human rights violations in Nicaragua that have added to concerns among monitoring groups. According to the UN’s latest findings, as many as 300 people have been killed and 2,000 injured over the past few months.

With Mr Ortega’s ruling Sandinista party now said to be using supporters mobilised into “shock forces” or “mobs” to attack peaceful protesters and heavily armed pro-government paramilitaries to arrest people across the country, there are eerie and disquieting echoes of the years during Somoza’s rule.

Mr Ortega himself has named his crackdown on protestors Operacion Limpieza, or “cleanup”, the same term that Somoza had used to describe his effort to eliminate the Sandinistas four decades ago.

Such painful ironies have proved too much for many former Sandinista revolutionaries who have gone over to the opposition ranks after their children were among those recently killed in the protests.

Claims however that the protests against Mr Ortega are stoked by outside influences and provocateurs also continue to do the rounds. Certainly the US and CIA have a along history of interfering with elected governments in Latin America, from Chile to El Salvador, and Argentina to Haiti.

But while there is currently scant evidence of this interference what is undeniable is the scale and extent of human rights violations carried out by Mr Ortega’s forces.

This week’s UN report will go some considerable way to highlighting violations which to date has been largely ignored at a global level.

Here in Scotland itself a recently formed group, Scottish Solidarity with Nicaragua, has launched a petition to bring attention to the worsening situation and foster political action. The group has also been able to solicit a statement from the Scottish Government that says it “shares concerns” about the violence in Nicaragua.

The statement goes on to “condemn violence against peaceful protesters, arbitrary detentions, media restrictions, and the use of live ammunition” and urges the Nicaraguan government to “stop repression of peaceful protests and to ensure a thorough investigation of all reports of human rights abuses”.

Back in Nicaragua meanwhile there is little sign that Mr Ortega is willing to make concessions or relinquish power in face of the latest UN condemnation.

The Civic Alliance as the opposition to the government is known, appears for now to be licking its wounds and biding its time while considering the next move.

Where a few weeks ago thousands took to the streets in Managua and other cities, protestors have temporarily abandoned the barricades but the prospect of renewed violence lingers.

It’s almost forty years ago now since the Sandinistas created history and entered the annals of revolutionary heroes when they overthrew Somoza.

Rarely since as a foreign correspondent have I witnessed anything to compare with the Sandinista revolution except perhaps the ongoing Rojava revolution by the Kurds in northern Syria.

Talking to those ordinary Nicaraguans I met in the wake of Somoza’s overthrow back then there was a real sense of hope for the future.

Little could they have imagined that all these years later, the spectre of Somoza’s dictatorship would come back to haunt them, least of all in the shape of Daniel Ortega.