"Mining Secrets: Major Nickel Producer Accused of Polluting Guatemala’s Largest Lake", 07 March 2022

...Police raided dozens of houses in El Estor belonging to people who had been protesting against the nearby Fénix mine in late October...[T]hey were met with tear gas, beatings, and arrests. As clashes escalated, authorities declared a month of martial law, including a dusk-to-dawn curfew...

...The company that operates it, Swiss-registered Solway Investment Group, has disputed their complaints, saying it protects the environment and follows the law...

Leaked documents from inside the mining group, shared with OCCRP and 19 other media agencies by Forbidden Stories, which led the investigation, show Solway executives have long hidden evidence that the company was leaching contaminated water into Lake Izabal.

The most stark example comes from 2017, when fishermen staged protests about a strange red slick that was spreading across the lake. Publicly, Solway blamed a bloom of algae for the discoloration, but internal reports and emails show managers in its Guatemalan companies knew red-stained water was spilling from the mine’s site...

Solway denied that it had caused any pollution, saying the company complies with Guatemalan law and international regulations...

...Dozens of documents in the leaked data show Solway was keeping track of Carlos Choc, a reporter who chronicled the demonstrations.

Choc and his colleague captured images and video showing a protester was killed during the demonstrations. Weeks later, prosecutors accused the journalists of taking part in illegal protests, committing multiple crimes. When a warrant was issued for Choc’s arrest in August 2017, he went into hiding for several months.

The Solway documents show he has been closely watched since his return...

The leaked documents show CGN used money to sway local opinion in its favor when the government held consultations over the mine’s environmental impact. One spreadsheet lists infrastructure projects the Pronico processing facility funded before the consultations, describing some of the payments as for the “purchase of community leaders.”

...CGN profiled 56 local communities according to their attitude to the mine, marking them as “negative,” “positive,” or “neutral.” Over eight months, 11 communities went from negative to neutral, and 14 from neutral to positive. By the end, only one was rated negative...

The document indicates that Pronico had earmarked 13,600 quetzales (US$1,761) to be spent on the Manatí fisherman’s guild in 2019, and 34,000 quetzales ($4,417) to buy fishing equipment for another fishermen’s group in early 2020, “with the intention of turning the leaders and partners of the [guild] into allies”...