Anne Michel, Paloma Dupont de Dinechin, Lea Peruchon and Phineas Rueckert
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Investigation In El Estor, in the southeast of the country, Phoenix, one of the largest nickel deposits in Central America, is accused of polluting the land and water around it. The international collective of journalists Forbidden Stories lifts the veil of the mystery of the owner of Fenix, the Solway group, based in Switzerland and run by Russians and Estonians.
March 2019, El Estor, in the southeast of Guatemala. Dark night on Lake Isabal. In the light of flickering light bulbs, a small team of journalists, united by the Forbidden Stories collective, sums up. They are all from Europe to investigate the controversial mining giant Solway, which operates the Fenix mine, one of the largest nickel deposits in Central America, a few kilometers away. Used to make alloys and stainless steel, this metal is so difficult to clean that it has been nicknamed “the devil’s copper” since time immemorial.
For journalists, the situation promises to be tense. Arriving in this agglomeration of about 100,000 people, a string of permanent homes and sheet metal shacks, in the early 2010s, Solway, a Swiss-based company run by Russians and Estonians with a holding company in Malta, is suspected of serious violations of human rights and the environment. This topic is all the more flammable since Lake Isabal, the country’s largest at 590 square kilometers, is home to a unique ecosystem. This is vital for this region, which relies heavily on agriculture and fisheries.
The inhabitants, mostly Maya speaking Q’eqchi, maintain a sacred relationship with this land and this vast expanse of water, which today is threatened by the waste generated by open pit mining. As far as we remember, they suffered from the brutal expansion of mining multinational corporations. The red hole caused by the Fenix mine on the slopes of the Sierra de Santa Cruz mountains is the latest evidence of this, and it continues to expand in the middle of the rainforest.
With great courage, the regional press agency Prensa Comunitaria is doing its best to denounce this situation. But his work is hindered by intimidation, threats and legal proceedings. This is what prompted Forbidden Stories to launch its project called Green Blood: this collaboration between media from different countries is an outstretched hand to these journalists, forced to remain silent or forced to hide, like Carlos Choc, 39-year-old Maya. Qekchi Correspondent. The mine, which has 2,000 employees, is suing him for six crimes and misdemeanors, while his only fault is wanting to pursue his profession. In the name of the right to know, Forbidden Stories aims to continue investigating Carlos Choca and other reporters, giving their fight an international profile.
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