Rigoberta Menchú

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Rigoberta Menchú Tum (2009)

Rigoberta Menchú Tum (born January 9, 1959 in Chimel , Guatemala ) is a Guatemalan human rights activist. In 1992 she was the youngest ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize . She ran for President of Guatemala in September 2007. She grew up during the Guatemalan Civil War and witnessed human rights violations herself.

curriculum vitae

Rigoberta Menchú was born as Quiché-Maya in Guatemala. She enjoyed the privilege of attending a Catholic boarding school, where she came into contact with the ideas of liberation theology and the women's movement that had a lasting impact on her. Her family was close to the left guerrilla movement ; her father was repeatedly arrested and tortured. At the age of 23, she was a founding member of the organization to document and prosecute human rights violations.

In 1979 Rigoberta Menchú joined the Comité de Unidad Campesina (German: Committee for Peasant Unit, CUC) like her father and brothers . In 1980 her father died in the Spanish embassy in Guatemala when it was set on fire by supporters of the regime. Her mother and a brother were also tortured and murdered.

Rigoberta Menchú became increasingly involved in the CUC, organized a strike for better working conditions for agricultural workers and, on May 1, 1981, large demonstrations in the capital. She also joined the Radical Popular Front of January 31st. There she taught the peasants to resist the oppression of the military dictatorship .

She later had to go into hiding in Guatemala and eventually fled to Mexico . From now on she also vigorously campaigned for the rights of indigenous peoples abroad and against the oppression in Guatemala. In 1982 she co-founded a common front of the Guatemalan opposition parties.

In 1983 her autobiography, written with the help of Elisabeth Burgos, came onto the market (Yo, Rigoberta Menchú) , with which she achieved great fame all over the world; In 1986 she joined the leadership committee of the CUC. In the meantime she advocated a stronger representation of the indigenous peoples in politics in Guatemala.

In 1995 she had a son. In 1999 she brought charges against three generals in Guatemala before the National Court of Justice in Madrid, receiving death threats and counterclaims for high treason because she had opened the case abroad. But she failed with this attempt.

In September 2007 Menchú ran for the presidency of Guatemala . However, she received only 3% of the vote in the first ballot. If she had won the election, she would have been the first woman and the first indigenous to hold this highest office.

Rigoberta Menchú became known worldwide through her work and received several honors. In 1990 she received the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education . In 1992 she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her commitment to human rights, especially from indigenous people (especially Maya ) . In 1996 it was by the United Nations to UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador appointed to promote a culture of peace and the rights of indigenous people. She is a member of the Club of Rome and in 1999 the asteroid (9481) Menchú was named after her.

Rigoberta Menchú uses the money from her awards for humanitarian purposes. In cooperation with a Mexican entrepreneurial group, she has built a chain of pharmacies that are now known throughout the country as Farmacias Similares .

Based on a book by the anthropologist David Stoll from 1999, she was partly criticized for details of her biography. She was accused of having inflated some of the autobiographical information. Stoll himself criticized some authors who refer to him and exaggerate his findings into a scandal. The investigation of Stoll came in turn in criticism, the historian Greg Grandin rejected most of the allegations of Stoll against Menchú in his investigation.

literature

  • Elisabeth Burgos: Rigoberta Menchú. Life in Guatemala . Lamuv Verlag, Bornheim-Merten 1984, ISBN 3-88977-001-0 (German-language edition of Menchús autobiography).
  • Luitgard Koch: I look up at the sky and stand with both feet on the ground. In: Charlotte Kerner (ed.): Madame Curie and her sisters. Women who got the Nobel Prize. Beltz Verlag, Weinheim / Basel 1997, ISBN 3-407-80845-3 .

Web links

Commons : Rigoberta Menchú  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Minor Planet Circ. 34354
  2. ^ Nobel Winner Finds Her Story Challenged , December 15, 1998, The New York Times
  3. The hour of Rigoberta Menchu . In: St. Galler Tagblatt , February 17, 2007. Here you can find the phrase "puffed up"
  4. Grandin, Greg. It Was Heaven That They Burned , The Nation , Sep. 8, 2010, pp. 3-5