Rigoberta Menchú to visit Australia
By Alberto Garcia
SYDNEY — Rigoberta Menchú, the Guatemalan human rights leader and the first indigenous woman in the world to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, is to visit Australia. This United Nations Ambassador of Goodwill for the International Year of Indigenous People has been invited to Australia by Community Aid Abroad, the Committee for Human Rights in Guatemala and the federal government.
The indigenous Guatemalans are direct descendants of the Maya civilisation and constitute more than 70% of Guatemala's population. Since the Spanish colonists arrived some 500 years ago, indigenous Guatemalans have been discriminated against and faced extermination. The Guatemalan Army has stepped up its systematic repression of indigenous and other sectors of Guatemalan society.
Menchú belongs to one of the largest of the 23 indigenous ethnic groups — the Quiche. Her life is much like that of thousands of other Guatemalans. She grew up in a very poor family. At the age of eight she contributed the miserable wage she earned from picking 100 kilos of coffee beans per day to the family's income.
The Menchú family didn't escape the army's terror campaign. Rigoberta's 16-year-old brother was kidnapped and tortured. The army forced the community to watch while they poured petrol over him and other innocents and burned them alive.
Rigoberta's father was a leader of the indigenous peace organisation, the Peasant Unity Committee (CUC) which campaigned for better wages and working conditions, and against unemployment and underemployment in the export-oriented plantations of southern Guatemala. Rigoberta's father and other members of the El Quiche region occupied the Spanish Embassy in January 1980 to protest the military repression. The army, breaching international conventions, set fire to the Embassy, killing all the occupants.
A few month later Rigoberta's mother was kidnapped, raped and tortured. She died a painful death as the army stood guard.
Continuous death threats forced Rigoberta Menchú to flee to Mexico, where she continued the struggle her parents had initiated. She has led the international campaign to denounce the Guatemalan government and army's constant violation of human rights.
Menchú will be speaking on the campaign for human rights and the latest political developments in Guatemala in Sydney on Sunday September 5, from 12 noon to 5 p.m. at the Marrickville town Hall, 307 Marrickville Rd, Marrickville (information (02) 419 2598) and in Melbourne at a Community Fiesta at the Collingwood Town Hall, Hoddle St on Thursday September 9 from 8 p.m. to midnight (information (03) 289 9444, (03) 376 0651).