Prominent Miskito Leader Brooklyn Rivera Passes Away While in Nicaraguan Custody

Dina Carolina Fagoth Rivera, the niece of Mr. Rivera, told reporters over the phone that his family and Indigenous communities seek to inter him in his native northern Caribbean coast region of Nicaragua and demand an independent inquiry into his death.

“We do not, for a moment, believe any of the official account,” Ms. Fagoth Rivera said, noting that her father, Steadman Fagoth Müller, another Miskito leader, had been detained by the Nicaraguan authorities in 2024.

She further described her uncle as “a beacon of hope for our people, a champion of their freedom.”

Reed Brody, a member of the United Nations Group of Experts on Human Rights in Nicaragua, stated in an interview that Mr. Rivera — first elected to the national legislature in 2007 — was likely the most influential Miskito political figure of the past four decades and one of the most prominent activists to die while in Nicaraguan government custody.

The group has recorded 124 instances of arbitrary detention of Indigenous leaders, with at least 46 killings on the Caribbean coast since 2018, Brody added. “His death epitomizes the erosion of Indigenous autonomy and highlights the issue of enforced disappearances in Nicaragua,” he said.

Approximately 500,000 Miskito individuals reside in Nicaragua, primarily along its northern Caribbean coast.

He opposed the initial Sandinista administration — of which President Ortega was a member — alongside the Contra rebels during the 1980s. His party, Yatama, initially allied with Ortega after his return to power in 2007, but later diverged over alleged violations of Indigenous land and rights.

In 2023, the Ortega administration barred Mr. Rivera’s party from participating in elections. After criticizing the government while abroad earlier that year, he was prohibited from re‑entering Nicaragua, but later returned and was subsequently arrested.

Source link