U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced new U.S. sanctions Monday against more than 100 members of Nicaragua’s communist regime in response to the death of 73-year-old political prisoner Brooklyn Rivera, who died in state custody last week.
Rivera died in unclear circumstances nearly three years after being arrested and subjected to conditions of forced disappearance since 2023. He was shown in a dramatically critical health condition by the ruling communists days before his death.
In an official statement, Rubio said that the United States will not ignore the Nicaraguan regime’s responsibility for the “horrific death” of Rivera. Rubio accused top official Lumberto Campbell Hooker, who was already under U.S. sanctions, of having direct involvement in denying medical care to the political prisoner and preventing “his family from burying his remains.”
The statement reads in part:
Today the Trump Administration took decisive steps to impose additional visa restrictions on more than 100 dictatorship officials and their family members. With this new set of restrictions, the U.S. 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 United States stands with the Nicaraguan people who, like Rivera, aspire to see a free Nicaragua.
Brooklyn Rivera was a former lawmaker and a leader of Nicaragua’s Miskito indigenous people who, for decades, opposed dictator Daniel Ortega. He was also the founder of the indigenous YATAMA political party.
Rivera travelled to Geneva, Switzerland, and denounced the Ortega regime at a United Nations forum on indigenous people that took place in April 2023. Ortega, in response, banned Rivera from returning to his own country. Rivera managed to sneak back into Nicaragua and lived in hiding until Nicaraguan law enforcement arrested him in September 2023 on unclear charges. American human rights activist Reed Brody recounted to the Washington Post last week that nobody had heard from Rivera since the arrest — effectively placing the political prisoner in conditions of forced disappearance. The communist regime banned YAMATA weeks after the arrest.
In late May, over three years after Rivera spoke at the U.N., the Ortega regime published harrowing footage of an agonizing and severely deteriorated Rivera, bedridden and in critical condition at a Nicaraguan hospital. The horrifying footage led to widespread international outrage over Rivera’s precarious state, with numerous politicians and activists stating that they held the Ortega regime responsible for the political prisoner’s health.
Days later, the Ortega regime announced that Brooklyn Rivera died on May 30, claiming that his “physical and neurological deterioration” was the product of a bacterial infection allegedly caused by the Wuhan coronavirus. That claim, according to the outlet Confidencial, was used by the Ortega regime to keep Rivera’s remains in state custody. Brooklyn Rivera is reportedly the seventh political prisoner of the Nicaraguan communist regime known to have died under state custody — a list that includes dictator Daniel Ortega’s own brother Humberto Ortega.
Most bizarrely, Ortega’s wife and dictatorial “co-president” Rosario Murillo confirmed Brooklyn Rivera’s death in the regime-affiliated outlet El 19 Digital, describing him as a “brother” who “went through a very difficult time health-wise and is now resting in peace.”
“The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship in Nicaragua is responsible for the death of Brooklyn Rivera, leader of the indigenous-aligned YATAMA political party. He died this weekend as the regime’s prisoner after 3 years of inhumane treatment, unjust detention, and enforced disappearance. The US stands with those, like Brooklyn, committed to a free Nicaragua. RIP/QEPD Ta Upla Rivera,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau wrote on social media last week.
Broklyn Rivera’s exiled daughter, Tininiska Rivera, denounced to reporters last week that the Ortega regime refused to hand over the activist’s remains and instead opted to hold an arbitrary and expedited burial without the family’s consent. Tininiska Rivera went into exile in 2023, days after her father was captured, and had not seen her father since then. She reasoned that the Ortega regime’s refusal to hand over her father’s remains is because they knew the family would immediately order an independent autopsy that would have revealed the “torture, inhumane and degrading treatments” that Brooklyn Rivera was subjected to for nearly three years.
Nicaraguan outlets denounced that six relatives of Rivera who travelled to Managua were unjustly detained by the Ortega regime after they sought to reclaim Brooklyn Rivera’s remains. The six relatives, including Brooklyn’s 64-year-old sister Alda López Bryan, are considered to have been subjected to conditions of forced disappearance as of last week.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
