Human rights struggle continues

Nobel Peace Prize-winning author speaks at SSU Tuesday as part of International Week

By Amy Roberts

Rigoberta Menchú, 44, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, but she said the work of promoting peace and reconciliation across ethnic, social and cultural dividing lines in many countries is far from over.

Sponsored by the University Lecture Series and scheduled during Fresno State’s International Education Week, Menchú received a standing ovation before she began speaking Tuesday evening before a sold out crowd in the Satellite Student Union. Her discussion addressed Indian rights, social change and the challenge of achieving peace in the 21st century.

Speaking through an interpreter, Menchú said that during the 11 years since she won the peace prize and the inception of her foundation, she continues to work for people who aspire to live in a world of peace and presses governments to end violence. Her most recent work in Guatemala is the opening of generic pharmacies to promote “health for everyone.” Health services, she said, should be available to all people as a basic human right.

Hope for the future, she said, includes education, investing in people instead of war materials and renewing spirituality.

During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Menchú said there’s a need to reinforce the role of human rights defenders and more are needed to oversee the investigation of crimes. For example, she said in Guatemala there are so few investigators, only 10 percent of the country is being searched for violations.

As a result, Menchú said, Guatemala has experienced a revival of self-defense patrols, general violence and crime organizations during the past four years.

The impunity these people operate with, she said, is giving a blank check to the rise in human rights violations. Confronting this impunity is very important, Menchú added, to putting a stop to violence.

Menchú, a Quiche Indian of the Mayan culture, became involved in fighting for the rights of Guatemala’s indigenous people after witnessing the horror of close family members being tortured and murdered during the civil war that tore her country apart, she writes in the introduction of Margaret Hooks’ book, Guatemalan Women Speak. Her father was burned alive, she said, on Jan. 31, 1980 while protesting at the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City.

Menchú, also involved in fighting against repression, had to flee the country in 1981.

She continued to fight for the rights of her people from Mexico, which ultimately brought her to the attention of the Nobel committee.

Menchú became the first indigenous person to receive the award. She joined other notable recipients including Martin Luther King in 1964, Mother Teresa in 1979, Desmond Tutu in 1984 and Jimmy Carter in 2002, according to the Nobel Web site.

Besides working for peace, Menchú has written numerous books including, I, Rigoberta Menchú, a biographical account of her life.

This book became the source of controversy when anthropologist David Stoll went to Guatemala and discovered some inconsistencies in her book.

During the press conference she addressed this issue, saying there may be minor differences, but whether her father was burned alive by kerosene or some other accelerant doesn’t deter from the fact that he was killed.

It only points out the need, she said, to continue seeking the truth by campaigning for the exhumation of 210 mass burial sites. She said there is no question that genocide occurred in Guatemala and that fact is well documented. Menchú’s Web site — www.fhrg.org — contains a rebuttal to the Stoll issue.

Menchú is also being honored Friday night in Fresno with a community leader award from the Oaxacan Binational Indigenous Front.