Annelise Wunderlich

In the world of Guatemalan politics, long dominated by machismo and the light-skinned ruling elite, Rosalina Tuyuc stands out. A diminutive woman wrapped in the vibrant colors of her Mayan culture, Tuyuc does not look like someone likely to intimidate military generals and other high-ranking government officials. But she is tougher than she looks.

After she witnessed the devastation of war and the disappearances of her father and her husband in the early 1980s, Tuyuc decided to take action. She gave up her role of housewife and spent the next fifteen years fighting to include the voices of Guatemala's women and indigenous majority in the country's political agenda-first as the founder and director of a national organization for widows and their families, and later as one of the first women to sit in Congress. She's still at it.

"We need more direct participation in the big decisions that are made by central government," she said before the small crowd gathered October 4 at UC Berkeley's Center for Latin American Studies. She said that although there has been a greater political consciousness among indigenous Guatemalans, their presence in the upper echelons of government--now headed by Presidend Alfonso Portillo, is still "very weak."

According to Tuyuc, nearly 70% of the Guatemalan population is indigenous, yet there is only one indigenous delegate to the executive council of Congress, and out of 130 congressional representatives today, only nine are indigenous. "There is a problem of exclusion, not only social and economic, but also political," she said. "Every time we've tried to take action, we've been repressed." She added that indigenous women often face the greatest discrimination. Despite the vocal leadership of women like Tuyuc and her friend, Nobel-prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, Guatemala is still a male-dominated society that has all but ignored the concerns of Mayan women--nearly 90% who are illiterate, and almost all who live in extreme poverty.

In 1988, Tuyuc formed CONAVIGUA, the National Coordinator of Widows in Guatemala, a grass-roots organization to help the thousands of women who lost their husbands during the 36-year civil war. Today the group has more than 13,000 members and continues to grow, despite a severe lack of funding and virtually no government support.

With the help of Tuyuc's energetic leadership, CONAVIGUA has brought human rights issues to the forefront of political debate in Guatemala-even though only a small portion of its members can read and write.

A congressional representative or the New Guatemalan Democratic Front from 1996 to 2000, Tuyuc had to speak loudly to be heard. With little formal education and few connections, she relentlessly brought social justice into the debate. In spite of open hostility from some congress members, she advocated creating war crime tribunals and holding military leaders accountable for war atrocities. She also condemned the death penalty in Guatemala, and earned the army's wrath by her efforts to abolish the forced recruitment of young Mayan males.

"We women are the ones who have joined together to fight against impunity and militarization," she said. "But so far we have received very few responses to our proposals."

Part of the problem, Tuyuc said, is that the forces in power rarely listen to her people. The 1996 peace accords mandated greater Mayan participation in government, but most indigenous leaders are chosen by local civic committees with no ties to national political parties. They are then left without a coalition to speak as a single voice for Mayan rights. And more than one million indigenous people can't vote because their identification documents were destroyed during the war. CONAVIGUA has succeeded in registering more than 5,000 Mayan women to vote, but many who live in remote areas remain disenfranchised.

Tuyuc said that the best way to empower Mayans in Guatemala is through foreign investment-but not in the military.

"We think it is very important to have international support for education, not just to fight the drug war," she said, referring to American aid money that has been funneled into the defense budget. "A country that has no education is a country that cannot develop."

In Guatemala, a place known for extrajudicial executions and a proliferation of death squads, it is not surprising that Tuyuc has been threatened numerous times for speaking her mind. But she considers the menacing phone calls and death wishes as just part of the job. While acknowledging the dangers, she said that she feels motivated to continue. "The future will be much more difficult for our children if we don't take risks now."

According to Tuyuc, the new administration under Portillo has done little to advance indigenous or women's rights, and she found it too difficult to be both an activist and a politician. She turned down another term in congress to work on strengthening CONAVIGUA and to push international investigation of war crimes in Guatemala. But she said she still wants to see more women active in government.

Tuyuc encouraged Berkeley doctors, teachers, and scholars to go to Guatemala to lend their expertise to under-funded programs like CONAVIGUA. "This will be a new millennium for women. We have a lot of strength, but only through international solidarity can we truly advance."