GREEN BLOOD - Guatemala
Paris - Grand Palais Ephémère - Art Capital
From 16 to 20 February 2022

 

On June 17, 2019, around thirty international media simultaneously published Project Green Blood , the code name of a vast collaborative investigation carried out in India, Guatemala and Tanzania by around forty investigative journalists belonging to around fifteen organs. Press.

 

At the origin of this project, Forbidden Stories, the collective of journalists from the Freedom Voices Network , an association created in 2017 by Laurent Richard , from the Première Lignes agency (Cash Investigation, on France 2).

 

One principle: resume, continue and publish the investigations of journalists forced into silence throughout the world by intimidation, pressure, prosecution, persecution or assassination. An inspiration: the Arizona Project , set up in 1976 by 38 journalists from 28 American media to complete the investigation of Don Bolles , killed in the criminal explosion of his car, while investigating a corruption case.

 

A context: collaborative journalism which has revolutionized the investigative press since the Panama Papers (380 journalists, 11 million documents exchanged).

 

In Guatemala, the Maya community of the village of El Estor denounces the pollution caused by the largest nickel mine in Central America. It all started when a red slick suddenly covered the lake near the mine. To investigate this mysterious contamination, the members of Project Green Blood go to meet Carlos Choc , a Mayan journalist sued by the owners of the mine and who, to escape prison, lives in hiding.

 

Journalists are trying to measure the contamination near the nickel mine. Local people complain of respiratory problems and skin diseases.

 

Local people who demonstrate to denounce environmental contamination are bloodily repressed. Abuses that have been suppressed to the highest level of the state.

The investigation focuses on a judge with a sulphurous reputation, who tries by all means to prevent the Mayan journalist Carlos Choc from continuing his investigation into the nickel mine.