One of the last large areas of jungle in Central America is the Moskitia region, and it has become a gateway for drugs in Honduras. The work of Juan José Martínez and Bryan Avelar “Moskitia: The Honduran jungle that is drowning in cocaine”published in InSight Crime In November 2023, it won the Ortega y Gasset Award for best research, addressing the precarious situation of the indigenous people who inhabit these lands. “The Moskitia forest is dying. And it is organized crime that is killing her,” reads the introduction of the report.
Journalist Juan José Martínez (El Salvador, 37 years old) learned that he had won the award while working on another topic. He was just minutes away from entering Haiti from the Dominican Republic. Through a voice note on WhatsApp, he indicated that the main motivation for his work as a journalist is “to document how powerless people are doing in the region of Central America and the Caribbean, to give a voice to those who do not make the decisions in the places where they live”.
Bryan Avelar (El Salvador, 30 years old) reported by phone, also in the middle of other coverage in Tapachula, on the southern border of Mexico, that the research that has earned him the Ortega y Gasset Prize is the result of more than a year of work , of which almost eight months were of field work. They had many difficulties in carrying out the report, starting with the complexity of accessing the enclaves, since it is one of the most remote areas of Central America – on one occasion it took up to three days to arrive from El Salvador -, to obstacles to interviewing to the sources: “Our presence was very noticeable, working like this is very complicated because the eyes of those who see you are those of an armed group, of drug traffickers. Luckily, we had prior contacts, but some of our sources had had to flee the scene before we arrived because they were threatened,” he added.
Both authors agreed on the importance of doing this type of journalism. “Putting the truth on the table about what is happening in Moskitia is one of the main effects that this report has had,” said Avelar, who affirms that the award helps him feel “that they are doing well and that the “Journalism must be on the side of the marginalized.” For Martínez, “the Miskitos are the last ecological barrier in Central America. If they lose their fight for the jungle, the consequences will be suffered by the entire region, but especially by those who have no power.” The reporter also wanted to vindicate the role of journalism: “We have a megaphone that we must not stop taking advantage of to talk about these inequalities because we are probably the only ones who can do it.”
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