MANAGUA -- A new brand of subversive is being born in a country with a history of traditional guerrilla movements: clean-cut youths who wear Hollister shirts and conspire on Facebook.

The cyber-revolution was inspired by a hunger strike launched this month by 1970s rebel leader Dora María Téllez, of Nicaragua's old-school revolutionary left, to protest what she calls the ''dictatorial intentions'' of President Daniel Ortega's government. At issue is a ruling by the Supreme Electoral Council to eliminate two minority political parties in the November municipal elections.

A small and unlikely group of students from well-to-do Managua families showed their solidarity through the simple gesture of forming a Facebook group called ''We Support Dora María Téllez.'' Within a week, more than 1,200 people had joined the Internet group, and the movement began to show signs of transcending the confines of cyberspace in a nation where citizens can vote at age 16.

The Facebook group posted daily Internet messages calling on its members to show up for nightly demonstrations at Téllez's protest camp at the main traffic roundabout in downtown Managua.

At first, the students responded by the dozens, and then by the hundreds. YouTube video posts from the various demonstrations provided an additional incentive for others to join. A linked Facebook group, ''Daniel Ortega Doesn't Represent Me,'' has attracted about 1,600 members.

Similar cyber-outreaches have taken place among youths elsewhere in Latin America.

In Venezuela, students used the technology last year to organize opposition to a controversial constitutional reform that would have given President Hugo Chávez broadened power and declared Venezuela a socialist state. The Dec. 2 referendum proposal was rejected by voters.

In February, a group of Colombians used Facebook to rally millions in a global protest against that nation's four-decade-old insurgency, known as the FARC. Demonstrators from Miami to Paris called for an end to violence and kidnappings carried out by the guerrillas. More than 700 captives are in FARC jungle encampments. The movement ''A Million Voices Against the FARC'' drew international attention.

4,000 IN MARCH

At the Managua gathering Friday night, about 4,000 people marched to downtown and called for democracy.

''Democracy yes, dictatorship no,'' chanted protesters -- many of them students who had followed the cyber-movement.

The protest was the largest so far against the government since Ortega took office Jan. 10, 2007.

''We as youth are already organized on the Internet, thanks to networking groups like Facebook and Messenger, so it's been natural [to use the Internet] to mobilize people,'' said Luciana Chamorro, a 17-year-old recent high school graduate who has become a driving organizational force in the online community.

Chamorro says that many students are increasingly frustrated by the current state of affairs in Nicaragua, both economic and political. But above all, she said, the recent Internet mobilization is spawning a social movement of energetic and educated youths who are organizing against a government they say is reducing democratic spaces for participation.

''We need a place to express ourselves. We need to find a space to channel our ideas into concrete actions,'' said Chamorro, the granddaughter of former President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro and legendary newspaper publisher Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, who was gunned down in 1978 for his fiery criticisms of the Somoza dictatorship.

Yet despite the small pocket of enthusiasm that the online groups have created, it remains to be seen whether the Internet can really be used as a revolutionary tool in a country where the Internet revolution itself has yet to take hold. In Nicaragua, only 3 percent of the population is online, the lowest Internet access rate in Central America and well below the Latin American average, according to government statistics.

In addition to the enormous digital divide, the Internet culture is another barrier.

Chamorro admits that some of the students who have signed up for the Facebook group did so because it was the trendy thing to do, while others joined because it's an easy way for people to feel that they are doing something without actually getting out of their chairs.

Still, Chamorro insists, most of those who have joined the group have done so because they are looking for ways to get involved, share ideas and organize themselves into a larger movement on the streets.

''The people are angry and they need to express themselves; this could turn into a big movement,'' she said.

`GREAT STRUGGLE'

Luis Caldera, the founder of the Téllez solidarity group, agrees. He says the rapid growth of the Facebook group, along with the presence of young protesters on the streets, shows that people ''don't want to continue with their arms folded'' and have ``finally awakened to start a great struggle.''

Caldera, a 19-year-old student, said the enthusiasm that the group has sparked shows that Nicaraguan youths are not apathetic. ''Dora [Téllez] was the fuse that started to burn, and we are the bomb!'' he wrote in a Facebook post recently.

Retired Gen. Hugo Torres, a former Sandinista rebel leader and vocal critic of Ortega, warns that the government has indeed created an explosive situation by eliminating spaces for democratic participation.

''The government is on a very dangerous path,'' Torres said. ``By closing civic spaces, the only option people are left with is rebellion.''

On June 11, the Sandinista-controlled Supreme Electoral Council canceled the legal status of the left-wing Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) and the Conservative Party, two parties considered to have viable candidates in several important municipal elections this November.

The decision to eliminate the parties, based on allegations that they didn't comply with all of the registration requirements, has been lambasted by civil-society groups and the international community. The MRS is challenging the decision before the Supreme Court and has said it is prepared to take the case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

TO THE STREETS

Téllez, who ended her 12-day hunger strike June 16 at the behest of doctors, said the struggle was now going to move to the streets, which are traditionally the undisputed territory of the Sandinista Front. Although Téllez has already drawn the high-profile support of other 1970s revolutionaries and international leftist icons, it is the new wave of students who are providing the greatest presence at the protests -- a phenomenon that MRS leader Edmundo Jarquín calls ''the new political dynamic'' in Nicaragua.

''Many people thought that we youths were asleep or indifferent to the suffering of our country, but that's not the case,'' said Caldera, the student. ``We are present, and the most important part is that we are awakening the consciousness of other young people.''

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