Criminalisation, and the use of ‘lawfare’, is being used increasingly against individuals, and groups, seeking to defend human rights in Guatemala. This is especially true with regard to those working to protect the environment. This can be seen through a lens of neo-liberal resource exploitation/extraction. The state puts the wishes of international capital before the needs of citizens and these actions adversely affect Indigenous peoples and communities. Such is the case with Carlos Ernesto Choc Chub, indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’ human rights defender and journalist.

Carlos is a Guatemalan journalist with Prensa Comunitaria, and is known for his investigations into corruption and human rights violations by companies and the government. Over the last 17 years he has been repeatedly persecuted for carrying out his work, suffering threats and criminal accusations. His investigations into the Fénix ferronickel mine, in his hometown El Estor, triggered a litany of attacks against him including threats, digital attacks and judicial harassment.

In May 2017, he was reporting on a protest where local indigenous fishermen were demanding an environmental study after a giant red slick appeared on Lake Izabal, Guatemala’s largest lake, that they attributed to the Fénix mine, and photographed the exact moment when a protesting fisherman was shot dead by State security agents.

The police initially denied that anyone had died during the protest and, in August 2017, Choc was charged with incitement to commit crimes, unlawful protests, and illegal detention during protests. These are standard charges used by the state to silence journalists and rights defenders. He remains under ‘substitute measures’ stemming from that case, which require him to sign a book at authorities’ offices once a month.

In April 2020, an individual broke into Choc’s home in El Estor, and stole his work equipment, including a camera and two mobile phones but did not take any other valuables. In October 2021, he returned to cover the protests of Indigenous communities against President Alejandro Giammattei and the Guatemalan Nickel Company (CGN). Once again Choc photographed the security forces brutally repressing the villagers, who were blocking the road in an attempt to uphold the Constitutional Court order to close the mine due to irregularities in its exploitation license.

It is not unusual for the state to ignore orders from the Constitutional Court when it interferes with the requirements of international capital, and of those Guatemalans who themselves benefit.

Following the coverage, police agents claimed to have been physically attacked and filed charges against him for ‘incitement to commit a crime’. During 2022, he was unable to carry out his journalistic work while having to fight a drawn out and regularly postponed criminal proceeding. Finally, in September 2022, he was declared innocent with the court having found no evidence substantiating the accusations.

The attacks against Choc have been denounced by the international community as an attempt to discredit and undermine his status as a community journalist, to intimidate him and make him stop reporting on the human rights and environmental situation in El Estor.

The criminalisation of Carlos Choc is emblematic of the risk that journalists in Guatemala face when taking on powerful interests in business or government. Journalists who investigate or criticise acts of corruption and human rights violations frequently face harassment campaigns and criminal prosecution.

In an interesting twist, the Fenix nickel mine, owned by the Switzerland-based Solway Investment Group, recently became targeted by the United States Department of the Treasury, when it sanctioned Russian national, Dmitry Kudryakov, the leader of Solway’s mining operations in Guatemala, and one other, for their role in exploiting the Guatemalan mining sector, as well as three associated entities connected with their corruption schemes.

Much of the text is from PBI, and you can read an interview that PBI carried out with Carlos Choc Chub, here, Defiant and unsilenced – Carlos Ernesto Choc Chub on the persecution of journalists in Guatemala, and you can read more of the work of PBI here, Peace Brigades International.

Carlos’s case is also featured with Front Line Defenders and you can read more here, New acts of criminalisation against journalist Carlos Ernesto Choc Chub.

Solway, and the silencing of journalists, like Carlos, featured in a series of reports from Forbidden Stories, featured here previously, and you can read more here, In Guatemala, the “Devil’s Metal” Is Ravaging Local Environments.

You can read the U.S. Treasury announcement of the sanctions against Solway here, Treasury Targets Russian-Backed Corruption in Guatemala Mining Sector.

You can read more of Carlos Choc’s work with Prensa Comunitaria, in Spanish, here, Carlos Ernesto Choc Chub – Periodista comunitario, Maya Q’eqchi.

Categories: Accompaniment, Criminalisation, Genocide, Guatemala, Human Rights, Indigenous peoples, Justice, Land, Military, Mining, Resource Extraction, Solidarity in Action, Solidarity in Action/Guatemala, Violence

Tags: Carlos Choc, Fenix, Forbidden Stories, Front Line Defenders, PBI Canada, PBI Guatemala, PBI-UK, Prensa Comunitaria, Solway, U.S. Treasury