Miskitu Leader Brooklyn Rivera of Nicaragua still unaccounted for.

July 30, 2025

July 2025 - While attending the EMRIP session in Geneva last week, Red River Métis Ambassador Clément Chartier met with Ms. Tininiska Rivera Castellon the daughter of Brooklyn Rivera the long serving Leader of the Miskitu Nation on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. Mr.Carlos Quesada, Executive Director of Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights based in Washington DC which made this trip possible, and which has taken an active role in Rivera's release, was also in attendance.

Ambassador Chartier first met Mr. Rivera in May 1981 at the 3^rd General Assembly of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP) held in Canberra, Australia. In December of that year the Nicaraguan Sandinista government began a repressive and brutal war against the Indian peoples living in the Atlantic Coast.

This led to the creation of an armed Indian resistance movement for the protection of their lands, resources, and people. In January 1986, then the President of the WCIP (1984-1987), Ambassador Chartier accompanied Rivera on a clandestine visit to several Indian villages in Nicaragua as part of a fact-finding mission. Also, taking part in this initiative were Indian leaders Russell Means (American Indian Movement) and Hank Adams, along with journalist Bob Martin from the USA. At the end of the two-week fact-finding mission, on the morning of the planned return to Costa Rica, the delegation was attacked by the Sandinista air force resulting in several villagers and resistance fighters wounded and a number of fighters killed. This fact-finding mission resulted in a book written by Ambassador Chartier and published in 2010: Witness to Resistance - Under Fire in Nicaragua.

This armed resistance finally led to peace talks and the establishment of autonomous regional governments in the Atlantic Coast. Rivera as leader of the YATAMA Indian organization also won a seat in the Nicaraguan National Assembly. While peace between the various Nicaraguan governments and the Indian peoples held for several decades, the Sandinista Party after its return to power, while initially governing for the good of all its citizens, eventually returned to its previous dictatorial practices and over the past 5 or so years has arrested hundreds of citizens, including catholic Bishops, Indian leadership, members of the press, political rivals and others.

Mr. Rivera who is also the Secretary of the American Council of Indigenous Peoples (ACIP) which was founded in 2018, of which Ambassador Chartier is President, attended the April 2023 session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII) in New York, and upon his planned return to Nicaragua was not allowed to re-enter. This action was taken by the Sandinista government after Rivera made an intervention at the Permanent Forum which was critical of the Nicaraguan government's action of renewed repression against his people.

In 2023, Rivera was still a member of the National Assembly, as well as leader of his people. To be with his people, Rivera entered Nicaragua clandestinely from that portion of the Miskitu homeland lying in Honduras and continued working with his organization and villages but could not participate in the National Assembly. Neither could his National Assembly Deputy, Nancy Elizabeth Enriquez, a former resistance fighter and President of the Indian women's organization: AMICA.

On September 29, 2023, Mr. Rivera made a visit to his house in Bilwi (Puerto Cabezas) and in the early hours of the morning he was arrested by the Nicaraguan security forces. To date, no one, not even his family, has received any word from him, nor from the government as to his location. As for Ms. Enriquez, she was arrested two days later, but after several months she was located in a women's jail where she remains to this day. It is also known that in a secret judicial hearing, without the benefit of legal counsel, she was sentenced to eight years in prison on the charge of treason.

Numerous efforts to have proof of life and the release of Rivera have been made by the Canadian government, the USA government, the United Nations, and the Organization of American States. None of this has resulted in any movement on Rivera's well-being or location, except for a statement by the Nicaraguan government in November 2024 at a UN Universal Periodic Review session where they confirmed that he was in state custody.

Efforts for this release, or at least proof of life, continue.

Witness to Resistance: Under Fire in Nicaragua

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