Human Rights Violations

Human Rights Violations

Oppression and fear after so long will either create a feeble person or develop a heart of courage to fight back for ones’ human rights. This is what the indigenous communities played in Rigoberta Menchu’s bittersweet and uplifting novel, I Rigoberta Menchu. Even after the inhumane killings of the peasant people in the indigenous communities, and the overwhelming agony it cost them, the peasants decided that by their own will and courage that they would fight back the government for their horrendous acts of racism and unjust economic and political power. As Mumm explains about Rigoberta Menchu how “ Her story exposes the horrors of genocide and paints a vivid picture of how the government used violence, torture, and coercion to exterminate many indigenous and ladino people in order to achieve its political agenda.” Violence and torture is what instilled fear. Many peasants were kidnapped and women were raped and murdered. Men received torture and grotesque deaths at the hands of these heartless soldiers, burned alive and decapitated by machetes who can only reflect these horrid crimes in the midst of their rust. These immoral and unethical acts are the very driving force which generated the indigenous communities to say no more.
The government began sending soldiers to the villages where the indigenous people resided, many of the peasants began to fear commuting because of the kidnappings and murders. So they decided not to leave the villages for any reason, not even to go the market in the capital. They would have to eat whatever they already had, which was not much at all. Similar to Gandhi, but unconsciously, the indigenous peasants were starving themselves for the same cause. “Gandhi sought to deter further killings… and he embarked on a hunger strike against communal violence that generated such public shame and outrage…” (Tharoor) The indigenous communities began to learn how to defend themselves however they knew and with... [continues]

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