{"id":189891,"date":"2026-06-01T00:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T06:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/confidencial.digital\/sin-categoria\/taupla-brooklyn-rivera-sandinismos-uncomfortable-ally\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T03:00:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T09:00:29","slug":"taupla-brooklyn-rivera-sandinismos-uncomfortable-ally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/confidencial.digital\/en\/english\/taupla-brooklyn-rivera-sandinismos-uncomfortable-ally\/","title":{"rendered":"Taupla Brooklyn Rivera: Sandinismo’s Uncomfortable Ally"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Brooklyn Rivera Bryan was one of the most significant Indigenous leaders in Nicaragua’s contemporary history. He was a political adversary, negotiator, ally, and interlocutor for Indigenous peoples with the regime of Daniel Ortega. The same regime stripped him of his seat in the National Assembly on two occasions, effectively banished him from his homeland, and imprisoned him until his final days. <\/p>\n\n

Taupla Brooklyn, as he was known in Miskitu Indigenous communities, died on May 30, 2026, at the age of 73, while in the custody of the Ortega-Murillo regime, which illegally detained him through deception on September 29, 2023. Rivera was one of the founders of Yapti Tasba Masraka Nanih Aslatakanka (Yatama, meaning \u201cChildren of Mother Earth\u201d in the Miskitu language), an Indigenous movement that later became a political party. <\/p>\n\n

A native of the Miskitu community of Lidaukra on Nicaragua’s North Caribbean Coast, Rivera emerged as a social leader in the 1980s. He served as Minister for the Development of the Autonomous Regions in the 1990s, was a prominent social leader in the 2000s, and represented the North Caribbean Coast in the National Assembly beginning in 2007. Above all, he was a leader who devoted more than five decades of his life to defending the rights of Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples. <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n

This is an account of the times Brooklyn Rivera allied with\u2014and confronted\u2014the Sandinista Front.<\/p>\n\n

The Denunciation of Red Christmas<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

During Daniel Ortega’s first government in the 1980s, Miskitu leaders were persecuted and branded as \u201ccounterrevolutionaries.\u201d Rivera was one of them. He was arrested in 1981 and released a year later for leading Misurasata (Miskito Sumo Rama Sandinista Asla Takanka). <\/p>\n\n

Under Rivera’s leadership, Misurasata clashed with the revolutionary government and filed the first formal complaint documenting human rights violations committed against the Miskitu Indigenous peoples<\/a> by the Nicaraguan government between December 1981 and January 1982. The events\u2014which included the massacre and forced displacement of thousands of Indigenous people, including women and children\u2014became known in Nicaragua as Red Christmas. <\/p>\n\n

In 1985, Rivera signed a peace agreement with the Sandinistas<\/a> in exchange for the autonomy of the Caribbean Coast being incorporated into Nicaragua’s Constitution. Regional autonomy was formally included in the Constitution in 1987. <\/p>\n\n

Years later, he participated in the Sapo\u00e1 peace negotiations and in the disarmament process of the Contra forces during the 1990s. <\/p>\n\n

The Alliance with the FSLN in 2006<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

During the 2006 election campaign, Yatama, under Rivera’s leadership, joined the United Nicaragua Triumphs alliance, which the FSLN organized as part of its effort to return to power in the following year’s elections. <\/p>\n\n

As part of that alliance, the FSLN committed to advancing the process of granting legal title to Indigenous and Afro-descendant territories and resolving land disputes within them, a longstanding demand of the movement led by Rivera.<\/p>\n\n

Backed by that alliance and supported by the Indigenous peoples of Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast, Rivera won a seat in the National Assembly in 2007, where he served as a negotiator, ally, and intermediary between Indigenous peoples and the FSLN. <\/p>\n\n

The Denunciation of \u201cBlatant Fraud\u201d in Regional Elections <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

Following the 2014 regional elections, Rivera distanced himself from the FSLN and denounced what he described as \u201cblatant fraud\u201d committed by the ruling party. He presented evidence and filed appeals that were ignored by Roberto Rivas, then president of the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE). <\/p>\n\n

In a 2014 interview with the television program Esta Semana<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Rivera alleged that the Sandinista Front distributed voter ID cards and paid cash to teenagers in order to inflate the vote count. He also said that Yatama supporters were subjected to the tactic known as el rat\u00f3n loco (\u201cthe crazy mouse\u201d), in which voters were deliberately directed to the wrong polling stations.<\/p>\n\n

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Brooklyn Rivera, national president of the Indigenous party Yatama, at a demonstration in Bilwi, on Nicaragua’s North Caribbean Coast. \/\/ Photo: CONFIDENCIAL Archive <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

The FSLN’s Broken Promises<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

In that same interview, Rivera explained that the Yatama-FSLN alliance began to unravel in 2012, when the Sandinista Front started acting \u201cunilaterally.\u201d He attributed the split to Yatama’s demands that the government fulfill its commitments to demarcate, title, and secure Indigenous lands. <\/p>\n\n

The issue had become \u201cvery uncomfortable for government authorities,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n

The government’s failure to fulfill its promise to secure Indigenous territories was compounded in 2013 by the passage of the law creating the proposed interoceanic canal. The megaproject was approved without consultation with Indigenous peoples, despite the fact that it would pass through their ancestral lands. The move further deepened the rupture between Rivera and the FSLN. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cWhen we insisted that Indigenous territories not be expropriated under that legal framework, we also insisted that the population be consulted, and they refused,\u201d Rivera said. <\/p>\n\n

Removed from the National Assembly in 2015<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

One year after Rivera formally broke with the FSLN, Sandinista caucus leader Edwin Castro promoted proceedings to strip him of his parliamentary immunity and accused him of using his influence to facilitate the illegal sale of land on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast. Rivera lost his seat through a vote by the ruling party bloc on September 22, 2015, but it would not be the last time. <\/p>\n\n

The Indigenous leader dismissed Castro’s allegations as a \u201cpolitical setup\u201d designed to remove him from his seat in the National Assembly. \u201cI was never given copies of the report or the evidence,\u201d said the leader of the Indigenous party Yatama. The accusations also sought to undermine his standing within his community and weaken his longstanding struggle for Indigenous land rights. <\/p>\n\n

Rivera argued that the FSLN was making a mistake by removing him from office. \u201cThey are mistaken,\u201d he said. \u201cThey think that by taking away my seat in the National Assembly they can clip my wings. But before I was a legislator, I was a leader, and we will continue fighting for our lands.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n

Accusations Against FSLN “Trafficking Indigenous Lands”<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

After being stripped of his seat in the National Assembly in 2015 and accused by lawmaker Edwin Castro of using his influence to facilitate the illegal sale of Indigenous lands, Rivera fired back by accusing several Sandinista leaders of being responsible for trafficking Indigenous territories<\/a>, which under Nicaraguan law cannot be transferred to third parties. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cThe regional and national authorities, the Police, the Army, and the regional councils in the Mining Triangle are involved in the sale of Indigenous lands,\u201d Rivera said on the television program Esta Semana<\/a><\/em>. He identified Waldo M\u00fcller, a Sandinista council member, as the largest trafficker of Indigenous territories, alleging that he operated under the protection of Carlos Alem\u00e1n Cunningham, secretary of the Regional Council of the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region (RACCN). <\/p>\n\n

In that same interview, Rivera said that \u201cthe Sandinista Front knows about it, and so does everyone involved.\u201d He stressed that the illegal sale of Indigenous territories on Nicaragua\u2019s Caribbean Coast was nothing new and argued that Castro was targeting him because they were \u201clooking for scapegoats.\u201d He challenged his accusers, saying: \u201cLet them prove a single case against me.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve spent 35 years fighting for Indigenous lands, and I don\u2019t even own a plot of land for my own burial,\u201d Rivera added. \u201cThe problem is that the government acts however it pleases in an authoritarian manner.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n

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