US imposes restrictions on 100 Nicaraguan officials after activist’s death
The death of Indigenous leader Brooklyn Rivera has prompted calls from UN experts for an independent investigation. The administration of United States President Donald Trump
The death of Indigenous leader Brooklyn Rivera has prompted calls from UN experts for an independent investigation. The administration of United States President Donald Trump has increased its sanctions on Nicaraguan officials following the death of Indigenous leader Brooklyn Rivera while in government custody. In a statement on Monday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the circumstances of Rivera’s death as “horrific”. He also underscored that the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo — spouses who share Nicaragua’s presidency — had held Rivera as a “political prisoner”, as part of their campaign to quash dissent. “Today the Trump Administration took decisive steps to impose additional visa restrictions on more than 100 dictatorship officials and their family members,” Rubio said. “With this new set of restrictions, the US government has now taken steps to impose visa restrictions on over 2,350 Nicaraguan officials and their family members for their complicit role in Rosario Murillo and Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship.” The Murillo-Ortega government has long faced criticism for its treatment of perceived dissidents, who have faced imprisonment, forced exile and the removal of their citizenship. Successive US administrations have criticised Nicaragua for its human rights record. But that scrutiny has increased in the wake of Rivera’s death last week. ‘Broad pattern of violations’ Rivera, 73, had been held in government custody since September 2023, with little to no contact with the outside world. His sudden death last week came shortly after the Nicaraguan government released photos of him bedridden and intubated in a medical facility. Those photos prompted outcry from the international community, as well as Rivera’s family, who demanded access to the imprisoned activist, as well as proof of his welfare.
On May 27, his daughter Tininiska Rivera issued a statement denouncing the “undignified, inhumane and degrading conditions” in which her father was held. “On the day my father was taken, September 29, 2023, he left his home in optimal health,” Tininiska wrote. “The regime cannot now claim to blame pre-existing conditions for the physical deterioration of a man who has remained in state custody for three years.” Several days later, on May 31, the Nicaraguan government announced Rivera’s death, citing organ failure. That news only heightened the outrage. In its aftermath, a group of United Nations experts described Rivera’s death as part of a “broader pattern of violations against Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples” in Nicaragua. It called for an independent autopsy to determine the cause of Rivera’s death, as well as the return of the activist’s remains to his family. “Failure to conduct an independent investigation and return the remains reinforces the strong presumption of State responsibility for Brooklyn Rivera’s death in state custody,” one of the experts, Jan-Michael Simon, said in a statement. The UN group noted that 124 Indigenous leaders in Nicaragua had been subject to arbitrary detention between 2018 and 2024, Rivera among them. Rivera was a representative for the Miskito, an Afro-Indigenous people who live along the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and Honduras. For much of his career as a politician and activist, Rivera clashed with Ortega’s Sandinista movement. Starting in the late 1970s, he fought the first Sandinista government as part of the Misurasata armed group, prompting him to go into exile. Later, the political movement Rivera co-founded, Yamata, would strike a brief detente with Ortega after the left-wing leader returned to the presidency in 2007.
The BriefWire