1992 Nobel lecture by Rigoberta Menchu Tum

(excerpts from introduction and conclusion)

I consider this Prize, not as an award to me personally, but rather as one of the greatest conquests in the struggle for peace, for Human Rights and for the rights of indigenous people who, for 500 years, have been split, fragmented, as well as the victims of genocides, repression and discrimination...

We have in mind the deepest felt demands of the entire human race, when we strive for peaceful co-existence and the preservation of the environment.

The Struggle we fight purifies and shapes the future.

Our history is a living history, that has throbbed, withstood and survived many centuries of sacrifice. Now it comes forward again with some strength. The seeds, dormant for such a long time, break out today with some uncertainty, although they germinate in a world that is at present characterized by confusion and uncertainty.

There is no doubt that this process will be long and complex, but it is no Utopia and we, the Indians, we have new confidence in its implementation...

By combining all the shades and nuances of the 'ladinos', the 'garifunas' and Indians in the Guatemalan ethnic mosaic, we must interlace a number of colours without introducing contradictions, without becoming grotesque nor antagonistic, but we must give them brightness and a superior quality, just the way our weavers weave a typical 'guipil' shirt, brilliantly composed, a gift to Humanity.

Because of repression, life was difficult for the activists and their families, who were forced to live in hiding. By 1980, Rigoberta had lost much of her family to the repression: her brother was dragged from the village by the army and burned alive in view of the community, including Rigoberta and her family, who were forced to watch; her father was killed in an attack by government soldiers when he and other activists occupied the Spanish Embassy to make their case known to the world; and her mother was kidnapped, raped, tortured and left to die.
In response to these tragedies, Rigoberta did not give up but she became even more active in the Committee of Peasant Unity. She figured prominently in a strike that the Committee organized for better working conditions for farm workers and in large demonstrations in the capital. She taught herself Spanish as well as other Mayan languages than her native Quich� and led the international activity of the Committee, becoming a member of its National Coordinating Committee in 1986.
In awarding the Peace Prize, the Chairman of the Nobel Committee addressed the vicious circle in which violence breeds violence and hate breeds hate. While the Committee could not judge or condemn, 'what we can do, however, is to point to the shining individual examples of people who manage to preserve their humanity in brutal and violent surroundings... Such people give us a hope that there are ways out of the vicious circle.' He referred to the autobiography of Rigoberta Menchu as 'an extraordinary human document... Its driving force is moral indignation.'
In her Nobel Prize speech, Rigoberta Menchu announced that the United Nations would proclaim 1993 as the International Year of the Indian People - a year of specific actions to truly place the Indian peoples within their national contexts and to make them part of mutual international agreements.