Rigoberta Menchú Condemns Abuses Against Native Americans

Onderwerp:            Rigoberta Menchú Condemns Abuses Against Native Americans
     Datum:            20 Feb 2000 18:33:45 -0000
       Van:            kolahq@skynet.be
       Aan:            aeissing@home.nl

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[article provided by LH. Thanks!]

The 1992 Nobel Peace prize winner, Guatemalan Indian leader Rigoberta
Menchu, said Thursday in Washington that Native Americans "are being slowly
exterminated in the ghetto-like reservations they have been relegated to."

This, however, is no worse than the extreme poverty and injustices endured
by
Indians throughout the hemisphere and around the world, she added.

Nevertheless, some progress has been made in Latin America, where injustices
against indigenous people can be reported before authorities in El Salvador,
Guatemala and other countries "without fear of reprisals," Menchu said.

"Such progress, which is very limited, is not enough, considering the
miserable conditions endured by people all over Latin America," the
Guatemalan Indian leader told EFE.

In comparing the Indian situation in the United States with that of Latin
America, Menchu said that indigenous communities in countries like Bolivia,
Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico and others had a certain advantage over
their U.S. counterparts.

"We are many, our numbers are greater, Indians have a visible presence.
Somehow we count," she noted.

Native Americans are at a disadvantage because they are a minority with
little support from the people around them and are beset by "many other
problems, like drug and alcohol abuse," Menchu said.

Menchu is in Washington lobbying for the release of Native American Leonard
Peltier, who has spent the past 24 years in prison following an armed
confrontation at Pine Ridge Indian reservation, in South Dakota, in 1975.

The incident resulted in the death of two FBI agents, of which Peltier was
unjustly accused of, Menchu said in a news conference Thursday.

The Indian leader, who considers the inmate "a symbol of the injustices
endured by Indians" and his case "a blatant violation of human rights," is
asking President Bill Clinton to pardon him.

Last Change: February 17, 2000

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