Rigoberta Menchú

Rigoberta Menchú
Rigoberta Menchu in 2009.
Born Rigoberta Menchú Tum
(1959-01-09) 9 January 1959
Laj Chimel, Quiché, Guatemala
Nationality Guatemalan
Occupation Activist, politician
Parent(s) Juana Tum Kótoja
Vicente Menchú Pérez
Awards Nobel Peace Prize in 1992
Prince of Asturias Awards in 1998
Order of the Aztec Eagle in 2010.
Website Rigoberta Menchú Tum profile

Rigoberta Menchú Tum (Spanish: [riɣoˈβeɾta menˈtʃu]; born 9 January 1959) is a K'iche' political and human rights activist from Guatemala. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the rights of Guatemala's indigenous feminists during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996), and to promoting indigenous rights in the country.

She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 and the Prince of Asturias Award in 1998. She is the subject of the testimonial biography I, Rigoberta Menchú (1983) and the author of the autobiographical work, Crossing Borders. Menchú is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. She has also become a figure in indigenous political parties and ran for President of Guatemala in 2007 and 2011.

Personal life

Rigoberta Menchú was born to a poor indigenous family of K'iche' Maya descent in Laj Chimel, a peasant hamlet in the north-central Guatemalan province of El Quiché. Menchú received a primary- and middle-school education as a student at several Catholic boarding schools. In 1981, Menchú was exiled and escaped to Mexico. She found refuge in the home of a Catholic bishop in Chiapas. In 1995, Menchú married Ángel Canil, a Guatemalan. They have a son, Mash Nahual J’a ("Spirit of Water").[1]

Activism

After leaving school, Menchú worked as an activist campaigning against human rights violations committed by the Guatemalan armed forces during the country's civil war, which lasted from 1960 to 1996. In 1979-80 her brother Petrocinio and her mother Juana were kidnapped, tortured and murdered by the Guatemalan army. Her father Vicente died in the 1980 Burning of the Spanish Embassy, which occurred after urban guerrillas took hostages and were attacked by government security forces. In 1984 her brother Victor was shot to death after he surrendered to the army, was threatened by soldiers, and tried to escape.

While in exile in Mexico, Menchú continued to organize resistance to oppression in Guatemala and the struggle for indigenous rights by co-founding the United Republic of Guatemalan Opposition. Tens of thousands of people, mostly Mayan Indians, fled to Mexico from 1982 to 1984 at the height of Guatemala's 36-year civil war.[2]

In 1982, she narrated a book about her life, titled Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y así me nació la conciencia (My Name is Rigoberta Menchú, and this is how my Conscience was Born) to Venezuelan author and anthropologist Elizabeth Burgos, which was translated into five other languages including English and French. The book made her an international icon at the time of the ongoing conflict in Guatemala.[3]

Since the Guatemalan Civil War ended, Menchú has campaigned to have Guatemalan political and military establishment members tried in Spanish courts. In 1999 she filed a complaint before a court in Spain because prosecutions of crimes committed during the civil war are practically impossible in Guatemala. These attempts stalled as the Spanish courts determined that the plaintiffs had not yet exhausted all possibility of seeking justice through the legal system of Guatemala.[4]

On December 23, 2006, Spain called for the extradition from Guatemala of seven former members of Guatemala's government on charges of genocide and torture. These include former military rulers Efraín Ríos Montt and Óscar Mejía. Spain's highest court ruled that cases of genocide committed abroad could be judged in Spain, even if no Spanish citizens were involved. In addition to the deaths of Spanish citizens, the most serious charges include genocide against the Maya people of Guatemala.[5]

In January 2015, a Guatemalan court convicted the commander of a former police investigations unit of murder, attempted murder and crimes against humanity for his role in the embassy attack, in which Menchú's father died.[6]

Menchú has become involved in the Indian pharmaceutical industry as president of "Salud para Todos" ("Health for All") and the company "Farmacias Similares," with the goal of offering low-cost generic medicines.[7] She served as presidential goodwill ambassador for the 1996 Peace Accords in Guatemala.[7] That same year she received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award in Boston.[8]

In 2006, Menchú was one of the founders of the Nobel Women's Initiative along with sister Nobel Peace Laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire. Six women representing North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa decided to bring together their experiences in a united effort for peace, justice and equality. It is the goal of the Nobel Women's Initiative to help strengthen women's rights around the world.[9]

Menchú is a member of PeaceJam, an organization whose mission is "to create young leaders committed to positive change in themselves, their communities and the world through the inspiration of Nobel Peace Laureates who pass on the spirit, skills, and wisdom they embody."[10][11] She travels around the world speaking to youth through PeaceJam conferences. She is also a member of the Fondation Chirac's honour committee,[12] ever since the foundation was launched in 2008 by former French president Jacques Chirac in order to promote world peace.

Politics

On February 12, 2007, Menchú announced that she would form an indigenous political party called Encuentro por Guatemala and that she would stand in the 2007 presidential election. Had she been elected, she would have become Latin America's fourth indigenous president after Mexico's Benito Juárez, Peru's Alejandro Toledo and Bolivia's Evo Morales.

In the election, Menchú was defeated in the first round, receiving three percent of the vote.[13] After the elections, Rigoberta Menchú gave a message of peace to all Guatemalans on television.[14]

In 2009 she was involved in the newly founded party Winaq. Menchú was a candidate for the 2011 presidential election, but lost in the first round, winning three percent of the vote again.[15]

Awards

The Nobel Peace Prize Medal awarded to Menchú is safeguarded in the Museo del Templo Mayor in Mexico City.
  • 1992 Nobel Peace Prize "in recognition of her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples."[16]
  • 1998 Prince of Asturias Prize for improving the condition of women and the communities they serve. (Jointly with 6 other women.)[17]
  • 2010 Order of the Aztec Eagle

Controversies about her testimony

More than a decade after the publication of I, Rigoberta Menchú, anthropologist David Stoll investigated Menchú's story, researching government documents, reports, and land claims (many filed by Menchú's own family), and interviewing former neighbors, locals, friends, enemies, and others for his 1999 book Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans.

Stoll claimed Menchú changed some elements of her life, family and village to meet the publicity needs of the guerrilla movement, which she joined as a political comadre after her parents were assassinated. The controversy caused by Stoll's book received widespread coverage in the US press of the time.[18]

Historian Greg Grandin claims Stoll's research on the Guatemalan revolution is mostly wrong, but states that "two of Stoll's charges concerning Menchú's life do have merit".[19] First, he documents that she received some education, contradicting a claim that her father refused to send her to school because he did not want her to lose her cultural identity. Second, Stoll presents evidence that Menchú falsely placed herself at the scene of her 16-year-old brother's murder.[20] According to Grandin, Stoll in a later interview agreed to the "essential factuality of Menchú's account of how her brother and mother died".[19]

In her own critique of Stoll's work, titled The Silencing of Maya Women from Mama Maquin to Rigoberta Menchu, anthropologist Victoria Sanford highlights inaccuracies in Stoll's book, and claims that he used highly questionable sources as research informants.[21]

The Nobel Committee dismissed calls to revoke her Nobel Prize, rejecting the claims of falsification by Stoll. Geir Lundestad, the secretary of the Committee, said her prize "was not based exclusively or primarily on the autobiography".[3] According to the Nobel Committee,"Stoll approves of her Nobel prize and has no question about the picture of army atrocities which she presents. He says that her purpose in telling her story the way she did 'enabled her to focus international condemnation on an institution that deserved it, the Guatemalan army."[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Irwin Abrams, The Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates: An Illustrated Biographical History, Watson Publishing International, 2001, p. 296.
  2. ↑ "Menchú Tum, Rigoberta". UNHCR. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Archived from the original on 4 June 2016. Retrieved 14 May 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 "Rigoberta Menchú Tum - Biographical". Nobelprize.org. 2013. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008. Retrieved 16 September 2013.
  4. ↑ Reuters, From (1999-12-03). "Activist Asks Spain to Pursue Guatemala Case". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  5. ↑ "Spain seeks Guatemalan ex-rulers". BBC News. 23 December 2006. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  6. ↑ Grandin, Greg. "Rigoberta Menchú Vindicated". The Nation. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  7. 1 2 GUATEMALA: RIGOBERTA MENCHU STEPS BEYOND TRADITION TO MOVE INDIGENOUS AGENDA, thefreelibrary.com. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  8. ↑ "Recipients of the Courage of Conscience Award". peaceabbey.org. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  9. ↑ Nobel Women's Initiative Archived 16 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine.
  10. ↑ Profile, BusinessWire.com, 20 April 2015. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  11. ↑ PeaceJam Mission Statement
  12. ↑ "Honor Committee". Fondation Chirac. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  13. ↑ "Nobel winner seeks presidency". Tvnz.co.nz. 10 February 2007. Archived from the original on 8 February 2009. Retrieved 22 April 2009.
  14. ↑ "Rigoberta Menchu send a Christmas and Peace message". YouTube. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  15. ↑ "Menchú, Rigoberta | The Columbia Encyclopedia - Credo Reference". search.credoreference.com. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  16. ↑ "The Nobel Peace Prize 1992", Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  17. ↑ "Premio Príncipe de Asturias de Cooperación Internacional 1998", Fundación Princesa de Asturias website]. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  18. ↑ Rohter, Larry (15 December 1998), "TARNISHED LAUREATE: A special report; Nobel Winner Finds Her Story Challenged", The New York Times, retrieved 27 November 2017
  19. 1 2 Grandin, Greg. "It Was Heaven That They Burned", The Nation, 8 September 2010, pg. 3.
  20. ↑ Grandin, Greg. "It Was Heaven That They Burned", The Nation, 8 September 2010. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  21. ↑ Sanford, Victoria PhD. "The Silencing of Maya Women From Mama Maquin to Rigoberta Menchu", pp. 135-43; see p. 142 for critique on Stoll's informant, Alfonso Riviera.

Bibliography

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