|
Rigoberta Menchu was born on January 9, 1959 to a poor Indian peasant family and raised in the Quiche branch of the Mayan culture. In her early years she helped with the family farm work, either in the northern highlands where her family lived, or on the Pacific coast, where both adults and children went to pick coffee on the big plantations.
Rigoberta Menchu soon became involved in social reform activities through the Catholic Church, and became prominent in the women's rights movement when still only a teenager. Such reform work aroused considerable opposition in influential circles, especially after a guerilla organization established itself in the area. The Menchu family was accused of taking part in guerrilla activities and Rigoberta's father, Vicente, was imprisoned and tortured for allegedly having participated in the execution of a local plantation owner. After his release, he joined the recently founded Committee of the Peasant Union (CUC).
In 1979, Rigoberta, too, joined the CUC. That year her brother was arrested, tortured and killed by the army. The following year, her father was killed when security forces in the capital stormed the Spanish Embassy where he and some other peasants were staying. Shortly afterwards, her mother also died after having been arrested, tortured and raped. Rigoberta became increasingly active in the CUC, and taught herself Spanish as well as other Mayan languages than her native Quiche. In 1980, she figured prominently in a strike the CUC organized for better conditions for farm workers on the Pacific coast, and on May 1, 1981, she was active in large demonstrations in the capital. She joined the radical 31st of January Popular Front, in which her contribution chiefly consisted of educating the Indian peasant population in resistance to massive military oppression.
Read More-->
|
|
A Maya Quichu Woman Testifies |
Indigenous people in the Americas have struggled against centuries of racism, attempts at genocide, and cultural discrimination. Indigenous women today and in the past have worked for the recognition and respect for native legitimate rights, such as the right to self-determination and territory, to cultural heritage, to control over their own resources. Some have felt an obligation to tell people about what has happened to their people. Learning the language of the dominant group, they have used it to testify about their people??™s fate. In the process they have become cultural mediators - bridges - between the oppressors and their people. They also have become influential leaders working to improve the condition and status of their communities. Two such women from different eras are Sarah Winnemucca, a 19th century North American Paiute woman, and Rigoberta Menchu.
Rigoberta Menchu: In 1992, Rigoberta Menchu, a 33 year old Maya Quichu Indian, won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on behalf of Guatemala??™s Indian peoples. Although she had been living in exile, because of the threats on her life, the prize put a spotlight on human rights abuses directed at Indians in Guatemala. During the years of Guatemala??™s thirty-six year long internal conflict in the 1970s and 80s, the longest in Latin America, the military turned on the Indians, accusing them of anti-government leftist leanings. A truth commission set up after the war ended said that more than 200,000 civilians were killed during the conflict and some 400 Mayan villages were razed. 38,000 people were taken by military death squads and never seen again. Thousands of children were orphaned, and one million people uprooted to become refugees. Rigoberta Menchu, a witness to these horrors including the torture and killing of her mother and father, became an active organizer who worked to help her people to defend themselves. Often she taught women how to defend themselves not only against government repression, but against traditional male injustice as well. She noted that her mother thought that daughters should be raised to become women who were useful to the community, that their participation in the struggle should be equal to that of her brothers.
Read More--> |
