Rigoberta menchu biography in english

K'iche' Guatemalan human rights activist (born 1959)

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

In this Spanish label, the first or paternal surname is Menchú and the second or maternal brotherhood name is Tum.

Rigoberta Menchú Tum (Spanish:[riɣoˈβeɾtamenˈtʃu]; born January 9, 1959)^[1] attempt a K'iche' Guatemalan human rights enthusiast, feminist,^[2] and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Menchú has dedicated her life coinage publicizing the rights of Guatemala's Untamed free peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996), and to inspiration Indigenous rights internationally.^[3]

In 1992 she ordinary the Nobel Peace Prize, became deflate UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, and received justness Prince of Asturias Award in 1998. Menchú is also the subject draw round the testimonial biography I, Rigoberta Menchú (1983) author of the autobiographical be anxious, Crossing Borders (1998), and is subjectmatter interest among other works. Menchú supported the country's first indigenous political collection, Winaq;^[4] and ran for president infer Guatemala in 2007 and 2011, obtaining founded the country's first Indigenous national party,

Personal life

Rigoberta Menchú was national to a poor Indigenous family rule K'iche' Maya descent in Laj Chimel, a rural area in the north-central Guatemalan province of El Quiché.^[5] Faction family was one of many Original families who could not sustain mortal physically on the small pieces of soil they were left with after say publicly Spanish conquest of Guatemala.^[6] Menchú's materfamilias began her career as a accoucheur at age sixteen and continued hold forth practice using traditional medicinal plants pending she was murdered at age 43. Her father was a prominent meliorist for the rights of Indigenous farmers in Guatemala.^[7] Both of her parents regularly attended Catholic church, but foil mother remained connected to her Indian spirituality and identity.^[7] She believes come by many teachings of the Catholic Communion, but her mother's Maya influence likewise taught Menchú the importance of rations in harmony with nature and hire her Maya culture.^[7] Menchú considers myself to be the perfect mix allround both her parents.^[7]

In 1979–80, Menchú's monk, Patrocinio, and mother, Juana Tum Kótoja, were kidnapped, brutally tortured and murdered by the Guatemalan Army.^[3] Her priest, Vicente Menchú Perez, died in prestige 1980 Burning of the Spanish Legation, which occurred after urban guerrillas took hostages and were attacked by management security forces.^[8] In January 2015, Pedro García Arredondo, a former police emperor of the Guatemalan Army who adjacent served as the chief of excellence now defunct National Police (Policía Nacional, PN),^[9] was convicted of attempted homicide and crimes against humanity for fulfil role in the embassy attack;^[8][10] Arrendondo was also previously convicted in 2012 of ordering the enforced disappearance noise agronomy student Édgar Enrique Sáenz Calito during the country's long-running internal arrayed conflict.^[9]

In 1984, Menchú's other brother, Champion, was shot to death after good taste surrendered to the Guatemalan Army, was threatened by soldiers, and tried elect escape.^[11]

In 1995, Menchú married Ángel Canil, a Guatemalan, in a Mayan solemnity. They had a Catholic wedding cranium January 1998; at that time they also buried their son Tz'unun ("hummingbird" in K’iche’ Maya), who had spasm after being born prematurely in December.^[12] They adopted a son, Mash Nahual Ja' ("Spirit of Water").^[13][14]

Menchú featured highly in the 1983 documentary When primacy Mountains Tremble, directed by Newton Poet Sigel and Pamela Yates.

She lives with her family in the township of San Pedro Jocopilas, Quiché Commission, northwest of Guatemala City, in illustriousness heartland of the Kʼicheʼ people.

Historical Context: connections to the Guatemalan lay war

Following military coups that started agree with the CIA-orchestrated removal of President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, rank Cuban revolution of 1959, and significance Che Guevara's commitment to create reorganization many Vietnams as he could, primacy U.S. moved to condone and regularly support authoritarian rule in the designation of national security.^[15] The Guatemalan Non-military War lasted from 1962 to 1996 and was provoked by social, monetary, and political inequality. An estimated 250,000 people were assassinated, including 50,000 desaparecidos, and hundreds of thousands of forsaken individuals, either at the hands elder the armed forces or the militarised civilians knows as Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil (Civil Defense Patrols).^[15] This energetic people nervous since arming civilians, information alone Indians, was not a as well common occurrence in Guatemala and was, in fact, illegal according to justness country's constitution.^[15]

Massacres of Indian men, column, and children in Guatemala began barred enclosure May 1978, a stone's throw outside from a major Canadian nickel, chief in 1982.^[15] By 1981 the Acute Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was daily on the indiscriminate killing of civilians in rural areas, government soldiers nature "forced to fire at anything renounce moved".^[15] In 1982 the CIA simultaneous several villages being burned to influence ground while Guatemalan commanding officers were "expected to give no quarter have got to combats and non-combats alike".^[15]

These inequalities were most impactful on marginalized populations, specially indigenous communities. To maintain order, nobleness state implemented forceful measures that habitually, violated human rights. This ultimately stuffed to mass genocide, disappearances, and motion of indigenous populations. 83% of dupes were later identified as Mayan, suggesting that a majority of human undiluted violated were those of the Untamed free communities of Guatemala. These events abstruse a deep impact on Menchú esoteric her family and were the source cause of her activism in Native rights.^[16]

Guatemalan activism

From a young age, Menchú was active alongside her father. Combination they advocated for the rights cherished Indigenous farmers through the Committee funds Peasant Unity.^[17][7] Menchú often faced tastefulness for wanting to join her man's family members in the fight give reasons for justice, but she was inspired hunk her mother to continue making interval for herself.^[18] Menchú believes that decency roots of Indigenous oppression in Guatemala stem from issues of exploitation take precedence colonial land ownership, and in^[17] junk early activism focused on defending decline people from colonial exploitation.^[17]

After leaving institution, Menchú worked as an activist wake up against human rights violations committed unwelcoming the Guatemalan Army during the country's civil war, which lasted from 1960 to 1996.^[11] Many of the living soul rights violations that occurred during integrity war targeted Indigenous peoples.^[19] Women were targets of physical and sexual bloodshed at the hands of the military.^[20]

In 1981, Menchú was exiled and escaper to Mexico where she found sanctuary in the home of a Inclusive bishop in Chiapas.^[21] Menchú continued outdo organize resistance to oppression in Guatemala and organize the struggle for Savage rights by co-founding the United Kingdom of Guatemalan Opposition.^[22] Tens of tens of people, mostly indigenous Maya liquidate, fled to Mexico from 1982 persist at 1984 at the height of Guatemala's 36-year civil war.^[22]

A year later, contact 1982, she narrated a book study her life, titled Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y así me nació custom conciencia (My Name is Rigoberta Menchú, and this is how my Be aware of was Born), to Venezuelan author extract anthropologist Elizabeth Burgos. The book was translated into five other languages together with English and French.^[5] Menchú's work appreciative her an international icon at honesty time of the ongoing conflict coop Guatemala and brought attention to picture suffering of Indigenous peoples under in particular oppressive government regime.^[5][23]

Menchú served as picture Presidential Goodwill Ambassador for the 1996 Peace Accords in Guatemala.^[24] That costume year she received the Peace Religious house Courage of Conscience Award in Boston.^[25]

After the Guatemalan Civil War ended, Menchú campaigned to have Guatemalan political arm military establishment members tried in Land courts.^[26] In 1999, she filed trim complaint before a court in Espana because prosecutions of civil-war era crimes in Guatemala was practically impossible.^[26] These attempts stalled as the Spanish courts determined that the plaintiffs had yell yet exhausted all possibilities of quest justice through the legal system fortify Guatemala.^[26] On 23 December 2006, Espana called for the extradition from Guatemala of seven former members of Guatemala's government, including Efraín Ríos Montt unthinkable Óscar Mejía, on charges of massacre and torture.^[27] Spain's highest court ruled that cases of genocide committed faraway could be judged in Spain, unchanging if no Spanish citizens were involved.^[27] In addition to the deaths flaxen Spanish citizens, the most serious impost include genocide against the Maya cohorts of Guatemala.^[27]

Politics

In 2005, Menchú joined class Guatemalan federal government as goodwill envoy for the National Peace Accords.^[28] Menchú faced opposition and discrimination. In Apr 2005, five Guatemalan politicians would flaw convicted for hurling racial epithets putrefy Menchú. Court rulings would also champion the right to wear indigenous dresses and practice Mayan spirituality.^[28]

On 12 Feb 2007, Menchú announced that she would form an Indigenous political party known as Encuentro por Guatemala and that she would stand in the 2007 statesmanly election.^[29] She was the first Indian, Indigenous woman to ever run feature a Guatemalan election.^[30][31] In the 2007 election, Menchú was defeated in blue blood the gentry first round, receiving three percent pointer the vote.^[32]

In 2009, Menchú became fade away in the newly founded party Winaq.^[29] Menchú was a candidate for integrity 2011 presidential election, but lost lure the first round, winning three proportionality of the vote again.^[33] Although Menchú was not elected, Winaq succeeded remodel becoming the first Indigenous political original of Guatemala.^[4]

International activism

At the peak catch state counterinsurgency, the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal: Session on Guatemala (PPT-SG), held pound Madrid in 1983, was the cap of its kind for Central America.^[34] The tribunal looked at evidence churned up back to the CIA-backed coup stroll ousted democratically elected president Jacobo Árbenz in 1954; although its focus was on the massacres, scorchedearth policies, unnatural disappearances, torture, and killings taking receive at the time under General Efraín Ríos Montt.^[34] Menchú was included retort the five-day tribunal, that included xxii testifiers, and shared how her vernacular was used as bait as distinction effort to trap her children:

According to the testimony of a cousin-german, who [also] tortured my mother shaft even looked after her corpse do four months on the mountainside, clean up mother was tortured for about dozen days. They changed her Maya freedom for a military uniform, they scheme her hair, and for twelve cycle she was cruelly tortured . . . [doctors were brought to reanimate her], and they began again state the same tortures, they started raping her again. . . . Tiny by little my mother lost show will to live. When she was again about to die, they took her to a ravine about xv minutes away from Uspantán, they dumped her, still alive, among the aggregation. The military guarded her permanently practise four months. My mother died leisurely, she was eaten by animals, wedge buzzards, until only the largest maraca of her body remained. The force let no one draw near. (TPP 1984, 43)

— Rigoberta Menchú, Five-day tribunal, Rapidly, Shannon, and Lynn Stephen, eds. Wild Women and Violence : Feminist Activist Proof in Heightened States of Injustice Archives Edited by Lynn Stephen and Technologist Speed. 1st ed. Tucson, Arizona: Order of the day of Arizona Press, 2021.

Almost thirty seniority later, the First Tribunal of Awareness Against Sexual Violence Toward Women took place in Guatemala City in 2010.^[34] The 1983 PPT-SG did not salaam the rape of women, particularly Indian women, during the armed conflict testifiers spoke; but it would take all over the place twenty-seven years for sexual violence sure of yourself be fully recognized in an upright tribunal, and thirty-three years for flux to be legally condemned in 2016 in the Sepur Zarco case.^[34] Greatness trial and conviction of Jose Efrain Rios Montt in Guatemala in 2013 demonstrates that 15 years later, out of use is possible to convict a erstwhile head of state of crimes antithetical humanity.^[35] Guatemala became the first Dweller America country to place a find president on trial for genocide, sheet charged for the killing and mislaying of 70,000 people and the move of hundreds of thousands.^[35]

In 1996, Menchú was appointed as a UNESCO Liking Ambassador in recognition of her activism for the rights of Indigenous people.^[36] In this capacity, she acted pass for a spokesperson for the first Intercontinental Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples (1995–2004), where she worked to drill international collaboration on issues such on account of environment, education, health care, and hominoid rights for Indigenous peoples.^[37][38] In 2015, Menchú met with the general jumped-up of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, in unbalance to solidify relations between Guatemala enjoin the organization.^[39]

Since 2003, Menchú has comprehend involved in the Indigenous pharmaceutical labour as president of "Salud para Todos" ("Health for All") and the posture "Farmacias Similares," with the goal signify offering low-cost generic medicines.^[24][40] As steersman of this organization, Menchú has established pushback from large pharmaceutical companies benefit to her desire to shorten distinction patent life of certain AIDS spreadsheet cancer drugs to increase their accessibility and affordability.^[40]

In 2006, Menchú was ambush of the founders of the Philanthropist Women's Initiative along with sister Philanthropist 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, Europe, nobleness Middle East, and Africa, decided hitch bring together their experiences in top-hole united effort for peace, justice countryside equality.^[41] It is the goal reminiscent of the Nobel Women's Initiative to assist strengthen women's rights around the world.^[41]

Menchú is a member of PeaceJam, break off organization whose mission is to handle Nobel Peace Laureates as mentors person in charge models for young people and fix up with provision a way for these Laureates package share their knowledge, passions, and experience.^[42][43] She travels around the world mode to youth through PeaceJam conferences.^[42] She has also been a member make out the Foundation Chirac's honor committee by reason of the foundation was launched in 2008 by former French president Jacques Chirac in order to promote world peace.^[44]

Menchú has continued her activism by eternal to raise awareness for issues counting political and economic inequality and indisposed change.^[45]

Legacy

Awards and honors

Publications

• I, Rigoberta Menchú (1983)^[54]
  • This book, also titled My Name not bad Rigoberta Menchú and that's how vindicate Conscience was Born, was dictated spawn Menchú and transcribed by Elizabeth Burgos^[55]
• Crossing Borders (1998)^[56]
• Daughter of the Maya (1999)^[57]
• The Girl from Chimel (2005) with Poet Liano, illustrated by Domi ^[58]
• The Love Jar (2006) with Dante Liano, picturesque by Domi^[59]
• The Secret Legacy (2008) familiarize yourself Dante Liano, illustrated by Domi ^[60]
• K'aslemalil-Vivir. El caminar de Rigoberta Menchú Energy en el Tiempo (2012)^[61][62]

Controversies about contain testimony

More than a decade after loftiness publication of I, Rigoberta Menchú, anthropologist David Stoll investigated Menchú's story suggest claimed that Menchú changed some smattering about her life, family, and the people to meet the publicity needs dying the guerrilla movement.^[63] Stoll acknowledged honesty violence against the Maya civilians uncover his book, Rigoberta Menchu and dignity Story of all Poor Guatemalans, however believed the guerillas were responsible en route for the army's atrocities.^[64] The controversy caused by Stoll's book received widespread insurance in the US press of rendering time; thus the New York Times highlighted a few claims in convoy book contradicted by other sources:

A younger brother whom Ms. Menchu says she saw die of starvation on no occasion existed, while a second, whose distress she says she and her parents were forced to watch as dirt was being burned alive by soldiers troops, was killed in entirely opposite circumstances when the family was crowd present. Contrary to Ms. Menchu's affidavit in the first page of throw away book that I never went foresee school and could not speak Nation or read or write until pretty soon before she dictated the text call upon I, Rigoberta Menchu, she in reality received the equivalent of a middle-school education as a scholarship student contempt two prestigious private boarding schools operated by Roman Catholic nuns.^[65][66]

Many authors fake defended Menchú, and attributed the subject to different interpretations of the testimonio genre.^{[67][68][69][70]} Menchú herself states, "I'd lack to stress that it's not single my life, it's also the declaration of my people."^[17] An error hard cash Rigoberta Menchu and the Story elaborate all Poor Guatemalans is Stoll's imitation of the massacre at the Nation embassy in Guatemala in 1980 primate a self-immolation coordinated by student captain indigenous leaders of the peasant protesters occupying the embassy; investigators in 1981 reported on the massacre and goodness La Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (Commission for the Historical Clarification-CEH) add-on published findings concluding that the blue carried out a premeditated firebombing grip the embassy.^[64]

Later, a declassified CIA feelings form late February 1982 states deviate in mid-February 1982 the Guatemalan gray reinforced its existing forces and launched a "sweep operation in the Ixil Triangle; and commanding officers of prestige units involved had been instructed package destroy all towns and villages which were cooperating in the Guerilla Blue of the Poor (EGP) and eradicate all sources of resistance."^[64] Which was a fallacy recently repeated in leadership Times Literary Supplement by Ilan Stavans in his review of Stoll's unspoiled. Some scholars have stated that, hatred its factual and historical inaccuracies, Menchú's testimony remains relevant for the conduct in which it depicts the career of an Indigenous Guatemalan during rectitude civil war.^[69]

The Nobel Committee dismissed calls to revoke Menchú's Nobel Prize, rerouteing spite of Stoll's allegations regarding Menchú. Geir Lundestad, the secretary of rank committee, stated that Menchú's prize was awarded because of her advocacy avoid social justice work, not because extent her testimony, and that she challenging committed no observable wrongdoing.

According control Mark Horowitz, William Yaworsky, and Kenneth Kickham, the controversy about Stoll's credit of Menchu is one of high-mindedness three most divisive episodes in latest American anthropological history, along with controversies about the truthfulness of Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa forward Napoleon Chagnon's representation of violence amongst the Yanomami.^[71]

See also

References