What is exposed and by whom? What are your sources? In the end its your word against Ms. Menchu's. She is the only one who knows the truth. IN her recent book *Crossing Borders* she has changed her story somewhat but (as David Stoll explains) it really doesn't matter. Perhaps its just that she is doesn;t appreciate enough the progressive nature of capitalist social relations?
>
> BUT more to the point, Rigoberta Menchu's elevation to heroic status was
> in the service of a political agenda. Whose? Kofi Annan's (and by
> implication his sponsors the US state department). Annan named Menchu
> his representative in Guatemala.
But Annan didn't give Menchu the Nobel prize. Menchu was built up by the media and elite liberals like the Mitterands(etc.), she was unknown as an activist in Guatemala. But that was her mission. She was sent by the URNG to gather international solidarity for their cause and to draw international media attention to what was happening in Guatemala. The EZLN learned from it all. In that, she succeeded beyond all expectations.
The international plaudits were
> supposed to increase Menchu's status. To what end? So that she could be
> used by the UN to front their Guatemalan mission.
Not quite. Menchu held the URNG line well into 1997. What international recognition and plaudits did do was win the URNG something (not much) at the table. The Guatemalan military and government was split over whether to negotiate with the URNG or to wipe it out completely once and for all as a military and a political force. It is largely through the work of Ms. Menchu that the latter option became an impossibility with all the international attention focussed on Guatemala. The URNG had to reject the initial peace proposals by the government if it was to win anything at all and show that 200,000 people didn't die for nothing.
>
> The pretext for the mission is the stalled negotiations between the
> Guatemalan guerillas and the government. The UN's Guatemalan mission
> aims to take advantage of the stalemate to undermine the country's
> sovereignty to make it more pliant to US interests.
When was Guatemala ever sovereign and not pliant to US interests? How could it become more pliant to US interests? Its post-1954 governments have basically been wings of American intelligence, though sections of the military have a kind of warped nationalism.
>
> Last year the mission came up with a plan for extensive regional
> autonomy for scores of distinctive indigenous groups. Some of these
> numbered no more than a few thousand, but under the plan would have had
> veto over national policy.
>
> Menchu's newly minted reputation as freedom fighter was deployed to
> popularise this plan. Astutely, Guatemalans sensed a scam dressed up in
> the language of rights to subvert their own national rights and voted
> the plan down.
>
Interesting opinions, do you have any evidence? The boilerplate LM ideology of 'human rights imperialism' and the practice of looking down at indigenous people is underargued. However, Guatemala does have a 'culture of fear' if there ever was one. It was deliberately created by the ruling class and their sponsors in the imperialist countries. It has worked quite well at destroying any popular initiatives and challenges from below like doing something about the 85% of the population that lives in poverty. A real victory. Chalk one up for America.
Sam Pawlett