PLATFORM : The ’92 Peace Prize Is for a Peace Yet to Be Born

This Nobel Prize is a recognition of those who have been--and still are in most parts of the world--the most exploited of the exploited ones, the most discriminated against, the most marginalized, but still, they are the ones that produce life . . . .

Paradoxically, it was actually in my own country where I met the strongest objections . . . for the award of the Nobel Prize to this Quiche Indian. Perhaps because, in all of Latin America, it is precisely in Guatemala where the discrimination toward natives, toward women, and the repression of the longing for justice and peace are most deeply rooted in certain social and political sectors . . . .

Among the most bitter dramas that a great percentage of the (Maya) population has had to endure is the forced exodus. Which means, to be forced by military units and persecution to abandon their villages, their Mother Earth where their ancestors rest, their environment, the (natural world) that gave them life and (prospering) communities, all of which constitute a system of social organization and functional democracy.

The case of the displaced and refugees in Guatemala is heartbreaking; some of them are condemned to live in exile in other countries (Menchu has been living in Mexico City), but the great majority live in exile in their own country. The are forced to wander from place to place, to live in ravines and inhospitable places, some not recognized as Guatemalan citizens, all of them condemned to poverty and hunger. . . . Under the present circumstances, in this convulsed and complex world . . . this honorable distinction to me reflects the awareness that, in this way, courage and strength is given to the struggle for peace, reconciliation and justice, to the struggle against racism, cultural discrimination, hence contributing to the achievement of harmonious coexistence between our people.

With deep pain on one side, but satisfaction on the other, I have to inform you that the Nobel Peace Prize 1992 will have to remain temporarily in Mexico City, in a kind of wake . . . until peaceful and safe conditions are established in Guatemala to place it there, the land of Quetzal.