/* Written Sep 7, 1995 by nyt@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu in misc.activism. */
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
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Translated for NY Transfer News
by Michael Pearlman
salem@vm.temple.edu
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FROM La Jornada (Mexico City), September 4, 1995
Menchu: The Indigenous Woman is being marginalized at
the Beijing Conference
by ROSA ROJAS
"It's a fact that the immense majority of the organizations that planned the
Beijing World Congress (on Women) have marginalized indigenous women,"
claimed the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu, who estimated that
because of this, "indigenous women will not be taken into account in the
women's agenda."
In an interview with La Jornada, she warned that she will participate "with
reservations" at the invitation of the UNESCO Director Federico Mayor in an
event during which, in the company of some First Ladies and other
personalities, a call will be made today (Monday, September 4) for a full
and decentralized education for women at this end of the millennium.
Nevertheless, she underlined, "I don't represent anyone...I don't think that
because of my participation, indigenous women have participated" or been
given a "worthy place" in the preparatory meetings for Beijing.
She refered to the fact that she, like other indigenous women, exhorted that
this situation be corrected, especially at the Mar de Plata Conference of
1994, when "I made a call, a petition, and thought that it was understood I
didn't want to participate in the Mar de la Plata meeting because I thought
the absence of indigenous women could not be justified just because
Rigoberta Menchu participated and gave a message."
She reiterated that there have been initiatives taken by indigenous women
themselves, like the conference in Ecuador at the end of July, whose
proposals should be heard in their own voices.
Nevertheless, she said, it is "inconceivable" that even in Guatemala, her
country, where indigenous women are the majority of the population in
general, "there will be a quite large delegation going to Beijing without
indigenous women." This definitively is "an undeclared racist attitude"
that is expressed daily, where the country's educational, economic,
political, military and social elites comport themselves as if there were
no indigenous people.
On another issue, she said that her role in the promoting of the Decade of
the Indigenous Peoples declared by the UN has been quite limited this year,
since she has preferred to dedicate more time to Guatemala, "not only to
actively participate in the country and play a defined and definite role,
but also to return and get to know the country I left many years ago - to
reencounter and discover it."
Yet she is considering a working plan for 1996 to help activate the Decade,
including gaining the support of various institutions so that the Decade
extends itself, because if the indigenous organizations and those with
cultural and educational purposes don't make the Decade their own, it will
be very difficult for it to succeed and prosper.
She lamented that, as occured with the International Year of the Indian
Peoples (1993) decreed by the UN, and of which she was designated goodwill
ambassador, the UN is diffusing "very little" of the advances that are
occuring as to the rights of the indigenous peoples, while she did recognize
that "at least in documents, on paper, there is a calendar for the
implementation of the Decade of the Indigenous Peoples which foresees a
series of events and national and international activities on the part of
the UN."
"There are a series of offerings, intentions, and documents already approved
that have required effort, work, on the part of the UN...[We indigenous
peoples] have given our opinions at every one of these phases, and yet there
has been no action. I suppose this isn't a UN priority. There's always a
problem - the lack of money," she added.
She explained: "The indigenous question continues to be one of the most
sacrificed, because it arises from ethics, and just to speak of indigenous
people is a bruising and confrontative issue in regard to a series of themes
and attitudes of the UN ... the Middle East war, Bosnia... which is why the
governments don't wish to take up the issue as such. I think the UN
doesn't have much interest in it, because of the business of ethnic
minorities and the theme of diversity.
She also criticized some governments and institutions such as the European
Economic Community (EEC), "who have promised large quantities of money for
indigenous issues," along with a series of bureaucratic rules that aim to
impose conditions "unacceptable" to the indigenous organizations.
"If you demand autonomy, this is a language that governments don't like, and
the thousands of dollars that are announced for these proposals don't
strengthen indigenous initiatives, but strengthen the lack of indigenous
initiatives or promote divisions among the indigenous people themselves,"
claimed Menchu Tum.
"They wish to impose projects and political lines?"
"Yes, definitely. They impose rules in all this...For example, from my
point of view and from the conditions of the Rigoberta Menchu Foundation,
we will not accept any imposition that obliges us in the long run to be part
of a coalition designed so that any institution whatever can be part of the
project."
"I think this shouldn't be the case, and I have said that we respect all
types of initiatives, even financial investment by particular organizations,
because we want positive results in whatever form, and we must make sure
these funds are well-administered, but our role is not to act from outside,
but to become vigilant that works be done well and take the population into
account and not be obligated to join an interminable dispute over who is
representative and who not. One can't speak of the representivity of an
institution that isn't indigenous. There are a series of roadblocks, and
not only for indigenous people."
"The population has a series of initiatives and a great participation, yet
the majority of these do their work alone, with much effort, and the bulk of
the financing announced for Guatemala...if we add up at the governmental
level the quantity pledged to Guatemala in the last two years, one would
think that Guatemala would be rich in no time. But all these funds are
conditioned, and as they don't break from paternalism and impositions, these
funds will go to Guatemala, but will remain mere promises that are never
concretized.
-- + NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems + + Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us + + voice: 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 modem: + + 212-979-0471 e-mail: nyt@blythe.org 212-979-0464 +FROM La Jornada (Mexico City), September 4, 1995
Source: gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:70/00/peace/carnet.gopher/11