Brooklyn Rivera, an indigenous leader, politician and activist, has died at age 73 after years of detention in Nicaragua, sparking a wave of condemnation from human rights organizations.
On June 16, the Nicaraguan government stated the cause of death was a bacterial infection after contracting COVID-19. However, many critics expressed skepticism and anger, as the announcement came after mounting pressure to verify his health condition.
“If he died, you cannot say it was from disease,” said Reed Brody, a member of the UN Human Rights Expert Group on Nicaragua. “The cause is that he was detained in conditions of forced disappearance for over two years, denied independent medical supervision. There is no other way to explain this.”
Since September 2023, Rivera had been held incommunicado. Until recently, there was no confirmation he was imprisoned, and his family was banned from visiting.
On June 12, Nicaragua’s Interior Ministry confirmed Rivera was in custody and released images of him intubated at a hospital, describing his condition at the time as “critical.” He was said to be suffering from “multi-organ failure, liver cirrhosis and acute lung infection,” treated with “mechanical ventilation via tracheostomy and intravenous nutrition.”
These images triggered a fresh wave of condemnation and calls for his release. The United States “demanded his unconditional release” and criticized Nicaraguan leaders for “their particular role in the cruel treatment of him.”
The Nicaraguan government, led by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, has long been criticized for its hardline policies and human rights violations. Under Ortega and Murillo, dissidents have faced arrest, imprisonment, torture, exile and loss of citizenship.
Rivera was one of the leaders who spoke out against the leftist Sandinista government. He was a member of the Miskito indigenous group, which fought to protect ancestral lands along Nicaragua’s northeastern coast, under pressure from the government and businesses seeking to exploit gold and silver resources.
He fought in the first war against the Sandinista regime (1979–1990) as leader of the armed Misurasata group. In 1980, he lived in exile in Costa Rica, then moved to Colombia. Rivera co-founded Yamata, an indigenous political party that helped secure limited autonomy for indigenous people after peace negotiations with the Sandinistas.
Ortega returned to power in 2007. In recent years, he has pushed through constitutional reforms to consolidate power, including elevating his wife from vice president to president. In his final years, Rivera continued to criticize the government. In April 2023, he traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, to speak at a UN indigenous forum. After criticizing Nicaragua, he was banned from re-entering the country but secretly returned and went into hiding until his arrest in September 2023. The government charged him with terrorism, but critics deemed it a move to silence an indigenous leader.
