Nicaraguan indigenous leader Mark Rivas was found dead

[Inkriql]

Nicaragua's indigenous leader Mark Rivas was found dead in a city on the Caribbean coast, victim of a shot, the Yatama ("children of mother earth" in Miskita language) reported on Saturday.

Rivas was leader of the Pri Laka, an opposition movement of Miskito origin, which has denounced the deaths of dozens of indigenous people and dispossession of their lands, supposedly at the hands of the authorities in the Caribbean area of Nicaragua, in the last 15 years. Yatama, party to which Rivas belonged, did not confirm whether the death was for political reasons.

So far the National Police has not reported on the death of Rivas, which occurred last night in the city of Bilwi, head of the North Caribbean Autonomous Region (RACN), in eastern Nicaragua.

A Yatama source told EFE that two versions are handled, the first refers to a discussion with an unknown person, and the second that it is suicide after the dispute with an unidentified person.

Pri Laka lamented the death of Rivas, whom he defined as "good man, good citizen, a great indigenous leader."

In the social networks circulated known words of Rivas, in which he explained that the indigenous “we dream of an autonomy where our representatives are chosen according to our uses, customs and traditions, not according to the current electoral system, where the parties decide and not the village".

Last September Rivas denounced through EFE that the official Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) has established “parallel community authorities” to increase the invasion of indigenous territories.

The complaint was made in the context of the socio-political crisis that confronts an apparent majority of Nicaraguans with the Government of Daniel Ortega, whom humanitarian organizations are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people since the po[CENSORED]r anti-government uprising in April 2018.

According to Pri Laka (“Libertad”, in the Miskita language), at least 140 indigenous communities with an average of 300 inhabitants have been invaded since 2015, both in the RACN and in the Southern Caribbean Autonomous Region (RACS).

The Miskito movement that until yesterday led Rivas, maintains that the last four years about 32 indigenous leaders have been killed, 28 disappeared, and two communities were burned down until they were uninhabitable.