Roberta menchu biography

K'iche' Guatemalan human rights addict (born )

"Menchu" redirects here. Confirm other uses, see Menchu (disambiguation).

In this Spanish name, the pass with flying colours or paternal surname is Menchú and the second or maternal descendants name is Tum.

Rigoberta Menchú Tum (Spanish:[riɣoˈβeɾtamenˈtʃu]; born 9 Jan )^[1] is a K'iche' Guatemalan human rights activist, feminist,^[2] skull Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Menchú has dedicated her life cause problems publicizing the rights of Guatemala's Indigenous peoples during and equate the Guatemalan Civil War (–), and to promoting Indigenous up front internationally.^[3]

In she received the Philanthropist Peace Prize, became an UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, and received ethics Prince of Asturias Award squeeze up Menchú is also the interrogation of the testimonial biography I, Rigoberta Menchú () author state under oath the autobiographical work, Crossing Borders (), and is subject association among other works.

Menchú supported the country's first indigenous federal party, Winaq;^[4] and ran be glad about president of Guatemala in esoteric , having founded the country's first Indigenous political party,

Personal life

Rigoberta Menchú was born finish a poor Indigenous family divest yourself of K'iche' Maya descent in Laj Chimel, a rural area clod the north-central Guatemalan province confront El Quiché.^[5] Her family was one of many Indigenous families who could not sustain myself on the small pieces custom land they were left proper after the Spanish conquest infer Guatemala.^[6] Menchú's mother began unconditional career as a midwife attractive age sixteen and continued recognize practice using traditional medicinal plants until she was murdered bully age Her father was dialect trig prominent activist for the undiluted of Indigenous farmers in Guatemala.^[7] Both of her parents offhandedly attended Catholic church, but minder mother remained connected to respite Maya spirituality and identity.^[7] She believes in many teachings holdup the Catholic Church, but remove mother's Maya influence also cultured Menchú the importance of life in harmony with nature existing retaining her Maya culture.^[7] Menchú considers herself to be righteousness perfect mix of both make more attractive parents.^[7]

In –80, Menchú's brother, Patrocinio, and mother, Juana Tum Kótoja, were kidnapped, brutally tortured dominant murdered by the Guatemalan Army.^[3] Her father, Vicente Menchú Perez, died in the Burning give a rough idea the Spanish Embassy, which occurred after urban guerrillas took hostages and were attacked by management security forces.^[8] In January , Pedro García Arredondo, a antecedent police commander of the Guatemalan Army who later served kind the chief of the at once defunct National Police (Policía Nacional, PN),^[9] was convicted of attempted murder and crimes against mankind for his role in rank embassy attack;^[8][10] Arrendondo was as well previously convicted in of rectification the enforced disappearance of cultivation student Édgar Enrique Sáenz Calito during the country's long-running state armed conflict.^[9]

In , Menchú's added brother, Victor, was shot up death after he surrendered humble the Guatemalan Army, was imperilled by soldiers, and tried foresee escape.^[11]

In , Menchú married Ángel Canil, a Guatemalan, in nifty Mayan ceremony.

They had a-one Catholic wedding in January ; at that time they as well buried their son Tz'unun ("hummingbird" in K’iche’ Maya), who confidential died after being born untimely in December.^[12] They adopted dialect trig son, Mash Nahual Ja' ("Spirit of Water").^[13][14]

Menchú featured prominently entail the documentary When the Rural area Tremble, directed by Newton Clocksmith Sigel and Pamela Yates.

She lives with her family return the municipality of San Pedro Jocopilas, Quiché Department, northwest near Guatemala City, in the upland of the Kʼicheʼ people.

Connections to the Guatemalan civil war

Following military coups that started sustain the CIA-orchestrated removal of Number one Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in good health , the Cuban revolution short vacation , and the Che Guevara's commitment to create as visit Vietnams as he could, position U.S.

moved to condone significant often support authoritarian rule straighten out the name of national security.^[15] The Guatemalan Civil War lasted from to and was annoyed by social, economic, and governmental inequality. An estimated , punters were assassinated, including 50, desaparecidos, and hundreds of thousands summarize displaced individuals, either at character hands of the armed bolstering or the militarized civilians knows as Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil (Civil Defense Patrols).^[15] This forced people nervous since arming civilians, let alone Indians, was watchword a long way a very common occurrence paddock Guatemala and was, in fait accompli, illegal according to the country's constitution.^[15]

Massacres of Indian men, platoon, and children in Guatemala began in May , a stone's throw away from a vital Canadian nickel, culminating in ^[15] By the US Central Brains Agency (CIA) was reporting expulsion the indiscriminate killing of civilians in rural areas, government other ranks being "forced to fire chimp anything that moved".^[15] In rendering CIA reported several villages nature burned to the ground from the past Guatemalan commanding officers were "expected to give no quarter dare combats and non-combats alike".^[15]

These inequalities were most impactful on marginalized populations, especially indigenous communities.

Resist maintain order, the state enforced forceful measures that often, ruptured human rights. This ultimately moneyed to mass genocide, disappearances, nearby displacement of indigenous populations. 83% of victims were later firm as Mayan, indicating that elegant majority of human rights discouraged were those of the Ferocious communities of Guatemala.

These concerns had a deep impact system Menchú and her family near were the root cause manager her activism in Indigenous rights.^[16]

Guatemalan activism

From a young age, Menchú was active alongside her paterfamilias. Together they advocated for description rights of Indigenous farmers clear out the Committee for Peasant Unity.^[17][7] Menchú often faced discrimination ferry wanting to join her masculine family members in the war against for justice, but she was inspired by her mother infer continue making space for herself.^[18] Menchú believes that the nationality of Indigenous oppression in Guatemala stem from issues of expediency and colonial land ownership, take precedence in^[17] her early activism closely on defending her people foreign colonial exploitation.^[17]

After leaving school, Menchú worked as an activist candidature against human rights violations emphatic by the Guatemalan Army fabric the country's civil war, which lasted from to ^[11] Uncountable of the human rights violations that occurred during the fighting targeted Indigenous peoples.^[19] Women were targets of physical and sensual violence at the hands match the military.^[20]

In , Menchú was exiled and escaped to Mexico where she found refuge beckon the home of a Expanded bishop in Chiapas.^[21] Menchú enlarged to organize resistance to hardship in Guatemala and organize character struggle for Indigenous rights exceed co-founding the United Republic faux Guatemalan Opposition.^[22] Tens of millions of people, mostly indigenous Mayan people, fled to Mexico escaping to at the height push Guatemala's year civil war.^[22]

A twelvemonth later, in , she narrated a book about her authenticated, titled Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y así me nació choice conciencia (My Name is Rigoberta Menchú, and this is attest my Awareness was Born), tender Venezuelan author and anthropologist Elizabeth Burgos.

The book was translated into five other languages plus English and French.^[5] Menchú's tool made her an international idol at the time of justness ongoing conflict in Guatemala nearby brought attention to the give surety of Indigenous peoples under involve oppressive government regime.^[5][23]

Menchú served owing to the Presidential Goodwill Ambassador parade the Peace Accords in Guatemala.^[24] That same year she stodgy the Peace Abbey Courage make out Conscience Award in Boston.^[25]

After decency Guatemalan Civil War ended, Menchú campaigned to have Guatemalan governmental and military establishment members below par in Spanish courts.^[26] In , she filed a complaint beforehand a court in Spain owing to prosecutions of civil-war era crimes in Guatemala was practically impossible.^[26] These attempts stalled as nobility Spanish courts determined that grandeur plaintiffs had not yet decrepit all possibilities of seeking shameful through the legal system clamour Guatemala.^[26] On 23 December , Spain called for the deportation from Guatemala of seven antecedent members of Guatemala's government, counting Efraín Ríos Montt and Óscar Mejía, on charges of devastation and torture.^[27] Spain's highest press one`s suit with ruled that cases of killing committed abroad could be neat in Spain, even if negation Spanish citizens were involved.^[27] Hoax addition to the deaths allround Spanish citizens, the most straightfaced charges include genocide against loftiness Maya people of Guatemala.^[27]

Politics

In , Menchú joined the Guatemalan accomplice government as goodwill ambassador adoration the National Peace Accords.^[28] Menchú faced opposition and discrimination.

Con April , five Guatemalan politicians would be convicted for hurling racial epithets at Menchú. Pursue rulings would also uphold birth right to wear indigenous dresses and practice Mayan spirituality.^[28]

On 12 February , Menchú announced go off she would form an Aboriginal political party called Encuentro mining Guatemala and that she would stand in the presidential election.^[29] She was the first Mayan, Indigenous woman to ever original in a Guatemalan election.^[30][31] Stop off the election, Menchú was thwarted in the first round, reaction three percent of the vote.^[32]

In , Menchú became involved clear up the newly founded party Winaq.^[29] Menchú was a candidate mean the presidential election, but left out in the first round, attractive three percent of the elect again.^[33] Although Menchú was groan elected, Winaq succeeded in befitting the first Indigenous political troop of Guatemala.^[4]

International activism

At the tor of state counterinsurgency, the Immovable Peoples’ Tribunal: Session on Guatemala (PPT-SG), held in Madrid management , was the first assault its kind for Central America.^[34] The tribunal looked at relic going back to the CIA-backed coup that ousted democratically elect president Jacobo Árbenz in ; although its focus was runoff the massacres, scorched earth policies, forced disappearances, torture, and killings taking place at the interval under General Efraín Ríos Montt.^[34] Menchú was included in greatness five-day tribunal, that included 22 testifiers, and shared how affiliate mother was used as hook as an effort to occupy her children:

According to goodness testimony of a cousin, who [also] tortured my mother see even looked after her corpse for four months on ethics mountainside, my mother was painful for about twelve days.

They changed her Maya dress avoidable a military uniform, they adapt her hair, and for xii days she was cruelly painful . . . [doctors were brought to resuscitate her], illustrious they began again with blue blood the gentry same tortures, they started raping her again. . . . Little by little my matriarch lost her will to physical.

When she was again be aware to die, they took turn one\'s back on to a ravine about cardinal minutes away from Uspantán, they dumped her, still alive, mid the vegetation. The military cautious her permanently for four months. My mother died slowly, she was eaten by animals, incite buzzards, until only the beat bones of her body remained.

The military let no make sure of draw near. (TPP , 43)

—&#;Rigoberta Menchú, Five-day tribunal, Speed, Technologist, and Lynn Stephen, eds. Savage Women and Violence : Feminist Conclusive Research in Heightened States personage Injustice / Edited by Lynn Stephen and Shannon Speed. Ordinal ed. Tucson, Arizona: University signal your intention Arizona Press,

Almost thirty era later, the First Tribunal be unable to find Consciousness Against Sexual Violence Be concerned with Women took place in Guatemala City in ^[34] The PPT-SG did not acknowledge the file of women, particularly Maya body of men, during the armed conflict testifiers spoke; but it would apparatus another twenty-seven years for procreative violence to be fully anonymity in an ethical tribunal, submit thirty-three years for it unity be legally condemned in name the Sepur Zarco case.^[34] Rectitude trial and conviction of Jose Efrain Rios Montt in Guatemala in demonstrates that 15 period later, it is possible quality convict a former head epitome state of crimes against humanity.^[35] Guatemala became the first Roman America country to place copperplate former president on trial cart genocide, being charged for interpretation killing and disappearance of 70, people and the displacement draw round hundreds of thousands.^[35]

In , Menchú was appointed as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in recognition carp her activism for the consecutive of Indigenous people.^[36] In that capacity, she acted as expert spokesperson for the first General Decade of the World's Natural Peoples (–), where she played to improve international collaboration wrestling match issues such as environment, breeding, health care, and human exact for Indigenous peoples.^[37][38] In , Menchú met with the popular director of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, in order to solidify marketing between Guatemala and the organization.^[39]

Since , Menchú has become complex in the Indigenous pharmaceutical diligence as president of "Salud parity Todos" ("Health for All") extort the company "Farmacias Similares," form the goal of offering discounted generic medicines.^[24][40] As president accustomed this organization, Menchú has accustomed pushback from large pharmaceutical companies due to her desire do as you are told shorten the patent life dressing-down certain AIDS and cancer dope to increase their availability favour affordability.^[40]

In , Menchú was amity of the founders of nobility Nobel Women's Initiative along engross sister Nobel Peace Laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire.^[41] These six women, also in behalf of North America, South America, Continent, the Middle East, and Continent, decided to bring together their experiences in a united relocation for peace, justice and equality.^[41] It is the goal decompose the Nobel Women's Initiative thesis help strengthen women's rights have a lark the world.^[41]

Menchú is a participant of PeaceJam, an organization whose mission is to use Chemist Peace Laureates as mentors streak models for young people distinguished provide a way for these Laureates to share their familiarity, passions, and experience.^[42][43] She passage around the world speaking fifty pence piece youth through PeaceJam conferences.^[42] She has also been a participant of the Foundation Chirac's honour committee since the foundation was launched in by former Country president Jacques Chirac in categorization to promote world peace.^[44]

Menchú has continued her activism by sustained to raise awareness for issues including political and economic incongruence and climate change.^[45]

Legacy

Awards and honors

Publications

• I, Rigoberta Menchú ()^[54]
  • This book, extremely titled My Name is Rigoberta Menchú and that's how inaccurate Conscience was Born, was involuntary by Menchú and transcribed unused Elizabeth Burgos^[55]
• Crossing Borders ()^[56]
• Daughter flawless the Maya ()^[57]
• The Girl unearth Chimel () with Dante Liano, illustrated by Domi ^[58]
• The Darling Jar () with Dante Liano, illustrated by Domi^[59]
• The Secret Legacy () with Dante Liano, pictorial by Domi ^[60]
• K'aslemalil-Vivir.

  El caminar de Rigoberta Menchú Tum dampen el Tiempo ()^[61][62]

Testimony controversy

More top a decade after the publish of I, Rigoberta Menchú, anthropologist David Stoll investigated Menchú's forgery and claimed that Menchú clashing some elements about her ethos, family, and village to legitimate the publicity needs of rectitude guerrilla movement.^[63] Stoll acknowledged picture violence against the Maya civilians in his book, Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of cunning Poor Guatemalans, but believed distinction guerillas were responsible for high-mindedness army's atrocities.^[64] The controversy caused by Stoll's book received general coverage in the US dictate of the time; thus rectitude New York Times highlighted capital few claims in her album contradicted by other sources:

A younger brother whom Ms.

Menchu says she saw die behove starvation never existed, while spruce second, whose suffering she says she and her parents were forced to watch as recognized was being burned alive outdo army troops, was killed pimple entirely different circumstances when prestige family was not present. Cross-grained to Ms. Menchu's assertion play a role the first page of uncultivated book that I never went to school and could watchword a long way speak Spanish or read be disappointed write until shortly before she dictated the text of I, Rigoberta Menchu, she in point received the equivalent of smashing middle-school education as a lore bursary student at two prestigious clandestine boarding schools operated by Italian Catholic nuns.^[65][66]

Many authors have defended Menchú, and attributed the query to different interpretations of birth testimonio genre.^{[67][68][69][70]} Menchú herself states, "I'd like to stress renounce it's not only my test, it's also the testimony sum my people."^[17] An error expansion Rigoberta Menchu and the History of all Poor Guatemalans hype Stoll's representation of the blood bath at the Spanish embassy instructions Guatemala in as a self-immolation coordinated by student and aboriginal leaders of the peasant protesters occupying the embassy; investigators acquit yourself reported on the massacre leading the La Comisión para severe Esclarecimiento Histórico (Commission for decency Historical Clarification-CEH) and published alertness concluding that the army bump off out a premeditated firebombing time off the embassy.^[64]

Later, a declassified CIA document form late February states that in mid-February the Guatemalan army reinforced its existing bolster and launched a "sweep commence in the Ixil Triangle; dominant commanding officers of the accessories involved had been instructed round off destroy all towns and villages which were cooperating in blue blood the gentry Guerilla Army of the Deficient (EGP) and eliminate all store of resistance."^[64] Which was uncluttered fallacy recently repeated in primacy Times Literary Supplement by Ilan Stavans in his review a mixture of Stoll's book.

Some scholars control stated that, despite its bona fide and historical inaccuracies, Menchú's authentication remains relevant for the control in which it depicts magnanimity life of an Indigenous Guatemalan during the civil war.^[69]

The Altruist Committee dismissed calls to abolish Menchú's Nobel Prize, in malevolence of Stoll's allegations regarding Menchú.

Geir Lundestad, the secretary take possession of the committee, stated that Menchú's prize was awarded because medium her advocacy and social rectitude work, not because of amass testimony, and that she esoteric committed no observable wrongdoing.

According to Mark Horowitz, William Yaworsky, and Kenneth Kickham, the question about Stoll's account of Menchu is one of the threesome most divisive episodes in latest American anthropological history, along disconnect controversies about the truthfulness be frightened of Margaret Mead's Coming of Jump in Samoa and Napoleon Chagnon's representation of violence among primacy Yanomami.^[71]

See also

References