It was announced in October 1992 that the prize would go to Rigoberta Menchú, a Mayan Indian of Guatemala "in recognition of her work for social justice and ethnocultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples."
The decision was generally applauded, but conservative critics charged that Menchú had taken part in violent actions of the Guatemalan guerrillas against the government. Previous Nobel prizes for champions of human rights had been given only to those who used nonviolent methods, like Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma. It was true that Menchú had every provocation to take up arms, and two of her sisters had indeed joined the guerrillas. Government soldiers had brutally murdered their mother and brother because their father opposed the landowners, and finally the soldiers had set fire to the Spanish embassy where the father and other compesinos were making a peaceful protest and burned them all to death.
Menchú tells this terrible story in I, Rigoberta Menchú, An Indian Woman in Guatemala, a book composed of a series of reminiscences she dictated in Spanish to the anthropologist Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. That Menchú did not turn to violence, but to political and social work for her people, is the reason why she received the prize. She became an active member of the Committee for Campesino Unity and then helped found the Revolutionary Christians. Menchú explained that "we understood revolutionary in the real meaning of the word 'transformation.' If I had chosen the armed struggle, I would be in the mountains now."
Committee Chairman Sejersted in his presentation speech emphasized the meaning of Menchú's decision. He spoke of "the brutalizing effect of the use of violence. Whoever commits an act of violence will lose his humanity. Thus, violence breeds violence and hate breeds hate." How can one break out of this circle, especially when one is confronted with the blind violence of the other side?
An answer can be found in "the shining individual examples of people who manage to preserve their humanity in brutal and violent surroundings, of persons who for that very reason compel our special respect and admiration. Such people give us a hope that there are ways out of the vicious circle."
To Sejersted, "even in the most brutal situations, one must retain one's faith that there is a minimum of human feelings in all of us. Rigoberta Menchú Tum has preserved that faith."
Her whole life story represents a remarkable achievement. Born in abject poverty among a suppressed people, working since the age of eight --- "I never had a childhood" --- she managed to get some minimal education in her church, where she first showed her potential ability, taught herself Spanish so that she could tell the world of the sufferings of her people, and, driven into exile in Mexico in fear of her life because of her political activities, she developed the skills of leadership and diplomacy until, as the prize announcement states, "Today, Rigoberta Menchú stands as a vivid symbol of peace and reconciliation across ethnic, cultural and social dividing lines, in her own country, on the American continent and in the world."
Reference
- http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/themes/peace/heroines/index.html
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