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9 January 1959—

Respecting the Dignity of the Indigenous

Although her struggle for justice was famous throughout the rest of the world, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, the K’iche’ Mayan peacemaker from Guatemala, was acknowledged by her own government as a force to be reckoned with only after she won the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee honored Menchú for her advocacy for the rights of Guatemala’s indigenous peoples.

Menchú inherited the struggle for economic equality from her Mayan ancestors. By 1679, the Spanish conquistadores had conquered all of the Mayan kingdoms and established colonial rule throughout Central America. For the next five hundred years, indigenous peoples were peasant slaves to wealthy European settlers, despite several violent attempts to throw off the yoke.

Menchú’s father, Vicente, fell afoul of the law when he tried to cultivate land in the mountains of Guatemala that belonged to wealthy landowners. While he spent time in prison, his family was forced to work on the plantation or finca to earn enough money for his release. His later involvement in the Peasants’ Unity Committee or Comité de Unidad Campesina (CUC), an organization that demanded the overthrow of the repressive Guatemalan government, eventually led to his murder by the Guatemalan army in January 1980. Two of Menchú’s brothers died from malnutrition and the poisonous effects of pesticides used on the fincas, and a third was murdered. Their grieving mother was abducted by Guatemalan soldiers who raped, tortured, and killed her.

Inspired by her father’s example, Menchú began working for the CUC. Her activism forced her into hiding soon after the deaths of her parents. Fleeing to Mexico, she returned to Guatemala in 1981 to continue the work her father started by joining with several groups (among them the Vicente Menchú Revolutionary Christians) as an educator. She traveled to Europe in 1982 as part of a coalition to raise awareness about the plight of indigenous Guatemalans. While there, she met the anthropologist Elisabeth Burgos. Burgos’ interview with Menchú eventually became the book I, Rigoberta, which gained Rigoberta and the indigenous movement of Guatemala international attention when it was published in 1983.

Shortly after being awarded the Nobel Prize, Menchú founded the Rigoberta Menchú Tum Foundation, which continues to advocate tirelessly for the rights of the poor and indigenous Mayan people of Guatemala. Its “Code of Ethics for an Era of Peace” states: “There is no Peace without Justice; No Justice without Equality; No Equality without Development; No Development without Democracy; No Democracy without Respect to the Identity and Dignity of Cultures and Peoples.”