When Cristobal Pop, 41, started fishing in Lake Izabal in eastern Guatemala with his uncle nearly 30 years ago, they always returned to shore with a generous bounty of robalo, tilapia and mojarra. Now, he’s lucky if he can make $7 or $8 dollars a day from his meager catch.

“It’s because of the contamination,” Pop, the president of the Fisherman’s Union of El Estor, said in a phone interview. He and other activists attribute the contamination to a nearby nickel mine. “The fish have migrated and it’s not the same anymore.”

As factories closed and travel decreased during the coronavirus pandemic, contamination and environmental degradation in some parts of the world also slowed. But that hasn’t been the case in El Estor, Guatemala, where residents have sparred with a transnational mining company for more than 15 years.

Instead, residents allege the Guatemalan Nickel Company (CGN), a local subsidiary of Swiss mining company Solway Investment Group, continues operations at the Fenix mine despite a nationwide shut down of unnecessary businesses in March and a court order suspending its license in July 2019.

They say the company is putting the whole community at risk by allowing its employees and drivers to continue work as usual, as some are traveling from other regions and could unknowingly spread the coronavirus. They worry the contamination they have long denounced for causing breathing problems is even more dangerous during a pandemic that attacks the respiratory system.

“They tell us that we have to stay inside, and that’s fine, but what happens? The big transnational companies, they still have the right to work,” Maria Cuc Choc, a local activist, told Mongabay. “What happens to our lives?”

In a statement to Mongabay, Solway said it “has been authorized by the Ministries of Economy and of Energy and Mines to continue its operations,” despite the suspension of its licence and the government not listing extractive industries as exempt.

“On site, strict preventive measures have been implemented to protect the health and safety of our personnel,” it added. “Internal procedures for emergency response are in place”.

The tension culminated in a protest in late April to block roads to restrict movement in and out of the area, an action directed at CGN employees.

History of conflict

The most recent protests are part of a long history of disputes between the company and local residents since 2004 – some which have turned deadly. At least three people have been killed in the clashes and a dozen arbitrarily detained, according to activists. 

CGN has denied responsibility for assassinations and violent clashes between protesters and police. On the Solway company website, it says it is “absolutely committed to the highest standards of health and safety, environmental protection, sustainability, and local community development.”

Activists and residents have mounted multiple legal challenges against the mine in national and international courts. The response was slow before the coronavirus pandemic, the plaintiffs say, and has only gotten worse. During the pandemic, the limited legal resources available to activists dried up as the country’s justice system ground to a halt.

“We can’t say that it’s just coronavirus that we have to confront,” said Cuc Choc, referring to discrimination, difficulties accessing justice and extreme poverty in El Estor. “We’re not prepared to confront another calamity,” she added.

The Guatemalan government first granted a concession for the Fenix nickel mine to EXMIBAL, the local subsidiary of Canadian mining company INCO, in the 1960s during the early years of the country’s 36-year internal armed conflict. Even then, it caused tensions with the local residents. When the government increased the tariffs on the mine in the 1980s, the company abandoned operations. The mine lay dormant for years.

Then, in 2004, Canadian company Skye Resources bought the rights to the mine, reigniting the conflict in El Estor. The Guatemalan government granted a mining concession to Skye Resources in 2006. In 2008, it merged with another Canadian mining company, Hudbay Minerals.

Land rights, environmental degradation, and the right to indigenous consultation are at the heart of the conflict. Some indigenous communities dispute the boundaries of the mining concession, saying the land is theirs by ancestral right. Since they don’t have the legal land titles, a common problem in indigenous communities that often leads to conflicts with extractive industries, activists have worked to legalize these titles, including a winner of the prestigious Goldman Prize for environmental defenders, Rodrigo Tot. Residents have also demanded their right to consultation under the 1989 international Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, which Guatemala ratified in 1996.

“They [the company] say that they are doing something good, something for the development of the people, but it’s not true,” said Cuc Choc, the activist. “What we are seeing is the destruction [of the environment], rights violations and the usurpation of land that does not belong to them.”

The tensions have led to instances of sexual violence, killings and criminalization of land rights defenders in El Estor, according to activists.

In 2007, armed private security guards working for the mine allegedly raped 11 women of the Lote 8 community during a forced eviction. The case, which is ongoing in a Canadian court, has for many become emblematic of the impunity for crimes committed during resource disputes in Guatemala, one of the deadliest countries in the world for environmental defenders.

“There is no justice for us,” Angelica Choc, an activist and the sister of Maria Cuc Choc, said in a phone interview. “There is only justice for the landowners and the government.”

The violence against these women was not an isolated incident. In September 2009, Adolfo Ich Chaman, an activist and Angelica Choc’s husband, was attacked by the mine’s private security guards, according to witness testimony He died of a gunshot wound to the head.

At least seven others were wounded in the clash, including German Chub, who was shot when he stopped playing soccer to see what was happening. He is now paralyzed from the chest down, but has since testified in court that the shooter was Mynor Padilla, the head of security for the company. Padilla was acquitted in April 2017 for Ich’s murder, but an appeal is pending.

“It’s a long fight,” said Angelica Choc. “But there’s no other world where I can seek justice. It’s only here and that’s why [I continue].”

New ownership, old tactics

In 2011, Skye Resources-Hudbay Minerals sold the rights of the mine to Solway Investment Group, a mining company headquartered in Switzerland, but often identified by residents as Russian because of the presence of Russian and Ukrainian workers at the site. The company structure is “obscured by an offshore network that ranges from Cyprus to Malta, the British Virgin Islands, and St Vincent and the Grenadines,” the Guardian newspaper reported last year.

The company mined more than 2.6 million metric tons of nickel from the Fenix mine in 2018, according to the latest annual report. Part of the nickel from the Fenix mine is designated for export to Ukraine, according to its 2016 report.

The violence did not end when the company switched hands, activists say. In 2017, residents noticed a “red stain” in Lake Izabal. They suspected the mine could be responsible and demanded an investigation. Tensions increased and, at a protest in May 2017, fisherman Carlos Maas, 31, was killed. “I will always remember the day they killed Carlos Maas,” said Pop, his uncle. “It was a day of great sadness.”

In June 2017, CGN presented charges of threats, illegal detention, unlawful gathering and more against several activists and two journalists.

“I never thought that they would do this to me,” said Carlos Choc (no relation to Maria and Angelica Choc), a journalist for Prensa Comunitaria who says the charges have no basis. The intimidation has continued in the form of phone threats, armed men outside his home, and a recent robbery. “Press freedom hasn’t been respected and it’s a constitutional right,” he said.

The charges sought to destabilize the organized opposition to the mine, said Pop, who faces charges as well. “But no matter,” he said. “I will continue despite the difficulties.”

Sisters Maria and Angelica have also received threats for their work, including anonymous phone calls, seeing unknown armed men stationed outside their homes, and at least one instance of shots fired at Angelica’s house. Maria has been accused of “usurpation and illegal detention” in an ongoing case, charges she and her lawyers say were a retaliation for her activism.

In April 2018, their nephew Hector Manuel Choc Cruz was beaten to death. The family believes the assassins were looking for Hector’s cousin, Jose Ich, a key witness in his father’s murder. “It’s been two years and we haven’t received any answer about the investigation,” said Angelica Choc. The Guatemalan Public Ministry could not be reached for comment on the case.

Then, in September 2019, the Guatemalan government declared a state of siege in El Estor after the deaths of three soldiers in a case that appears to be unrelated to the conflict between residents and the nickel mine. “During the state of siege, they took advantage to intimidate us,” said Angelica Choc. “Terror and fear prevail. The state of siege doesn’t benefit us.”

After she noticed an increased military presence outside her house, Angelica temporarily left the area at the request of her son.

“I have no doubt that all the serious violence in El Estor is related to mining in one way or another,” said Grahame Russell, director of Rights Action, a Canada-based human rights organization that accompanies human rights groups in Central America, including activists in El Estor. “The root cause is the impunity and corruption of Guatemalan political authorities and the mining industry.”

In turn, the company and local politicians say activists are responsible for the violence. For example, in 2017, the mayor of El Estor told local media that he fled in fear after he was threatened with lynching for refusing to suspend mining operations.

Quest for justice

Ultimately, who is at fault is up to the courts to decide, but a resolution will only be further delayed because of the pandemic, activists say.

The Fishermen’s Union launched a complaint through the country’s Supreme Court in 2018, alleging that the company’s mining license is invalid because it did not consult the community as required by international treaty. CGN says it conducted two consultations, one in 2005 and another in 2018, according to Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre.

The court did not suspend the mining license, so the union appealed in the Constitutional Court, which handles constitutional disputes. In July, the Constitutional Court ruled to temporarily suspend the company’s mining license while it determined a final resolution in the case. “The goal of this struggle is to have a consultation as the convention establishes,” said Pop, the president of the Fishermen’s Union. “We are loyal to our goal, always continuing no matter what happens.”

The company said in a statement in July that it would follow the court’s order. “However, as an employer responsible for the lives of over 2,000 staff members and their families, we will take all possible measures not to halt our operations to the extent that this is possible within the legal framework,” the statement reads.

Despite the ruling, CGN continues to operate, according to residents of El Estor, who provided videos of recent activity to Mongabay. Mongabay could not independently verify the videos.

It now falls on the Ministry of Energy and Mining to carry out the Constitutional Court’s order, but the ministry has not done so, according to Rafael Maldonado, a lawyer representing the Fishermen’s Union. Now, the pandemic has made justice even more inaccessible, he says.

Since mid-March, the country’s justice system has been operating limited services, with most court cases suspended indefinitely.  “And it’s not returning to normalcy,” he said. There is no scheduled court date for the next Constitutional Court hearing and no way to know when there will be.

Other cases are also postponed indefinitely, including the appeal for the murder of Adolfo Ich, the cases against journalist Carlos Choc and activist Maria Choc, and the Canadian court case for the rape 11 women in Lote 8 in 2007.

The longer the process takes, the greater the mental health toll for those seeking justice. “I’ve spent more than ten years standing in front of the courts, suffering psychologically,” said Angelica Choc. “There have been moments when I’ve said, ‘I’m going to throw in the towel.’”

“The pandemic is one more virus that has caused so much harm,” Angelica says, “that has exploited us, that has displaced us from our resources in favor of companies and landowners.”

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Banner  image: The Fenix ferro-nickel mining project operated for a few years in the late 1970s. The Solway Group, the Russian conglomerate that now owns the project, started up operations again in 2014. Photo by Sandra Cuffe for Mongabay.

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