The inhabitants of El Estor, a town of mostly Mayans in eastern Guatemala, are living under a “state of siege,” watched over by armed soldiers after their years-long fight against a nickel mine took an ominous turn.
El Estor’s subsistence fishers, mainly of the Mayan Q’eqchi’ community, say that the Fenix mine is polluting Lake Izabal, diminishing stocks of fish that were abundant just a generation ago.
The mine’s owners deny the allegation, saying that adequate environmental protections are in place.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Frustrated, residents mounted a protest against the mine on Sunday that was put down by security forces using tear gas.
The confrontation left four police officers wounded, and resulted in the government declaring a state of siege, complete with a month-long protest ban and a night curfew enforced by 1,000 police officers and soldiers deployed among the community of 100,000 people.
For three weeks before Sunday’s clashes, El Estor residents had blocked truck access to the mine operated by Guatemalan Nickel Co (CGN), a unit of the Switzerland-based Solway Investment Group.
Photo: AFP
“This company is bringing us death,” said Cristobal Pop, 44, a fisher and protest leader who said that he would not be deterred by what he sees as the government’s “intimidation” measures.
“I have four children and they will bear the brunt” of the nickel mining operation, he said. “My children’s future depends on me.”
Pop said that when he was a child, Lake Izabal — Guatemala’s largest — was replete with fish.
He said that the numbers have dwindled since the Fenix mine resumed nickel extraction and processing in 2014.
In 2017, a red slick spread over the lake, which the community blamed on mining pollution.
In resulting protests, Pop was imprisoned and his comrade, Carlos Maaz, shot dead.
This month, the community resumed demonstrations, accusing CGN of continuing to mine at Fenix, despite a 2019 Guatemalan Constitutional Court order for it to suspend operations.
The court ruled in favor of local communities, who said they had not been consulted about the opening of the mine or its effects on them.
The government was ordered to open fresh consultations, but the people of El Estor say that they are being excluded.
For its part, Solway said in a statement on Sunday that it was adhering to the court order.
Extraction at Fenix has stopped, it said, but its processing plant was not affected by the ruling and continues to operate.
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