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Frederik Willem de Klerk
Equality and Compromise in South Africa
Equality Segregation Racism Indigenous Rights
>>Approfondisci
In South Africa, from 1948 until 1994, there was a system of legal racial segregation known as apartheid. Under apartheid, laws stripped black people and other minorities of their rights and dignity. However, in 1994, through the efforts of a reform-minded President Frederik De Klerk and the ANC leader Nelson Mandela they brought an end to apartheid.
De Klerk‘s political career began in 1969, when he was elected to the House of Assembly, one of the houses of Parliament. He quickly moved up in the National Party where he was appointed head of several ministerial divisions including: mines and energy affairs, internal affairs, national education and planning. During this time in his career, de Klerk earned a reputation for supporting segregated universities and was not known to advocate reform.
In February 1989 he was elected head of the National Party. Only seven months later, after president P.W. Botha stepped down due to a stroke, de Klerk became South Africa’s new President. As President, de Klerk committed himself to the reform of the apartheid system. He entered into talks with representatives from four official racial groups (white, black, colored and Indian) to negotiate a post-apartheid constitution. De Klerk ordered the release of political prisoners including anti-apartheid activist and future South African President Nelson Mandela and lifted the ban on political groups such as the African National Congress and Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania.
In 1991 de Klerk’s efforts culminated in the government’s repeal of the apartheid legislation, which was strongly supported by white voters. De Klerk, Nelson Mandela and several other representatives drafted a new constitution which led to multi-racial national elections resulting in the victory of the ANC and Mandela. In 1993, de Klerk received the Nobel Peace Prize along with Nelson Mandela for their contributions to the establishment of nonracial democracy in South Africa and ending apartheid.
Rigoberta Menchú Tum
Indigenous Rights
Free Expression Indigenous Rights Torture Legal Protection Discrimination Property
>>Approfondisci
Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a heroine to Maya Indians in Guatemala and indigenous peoples throughout the world. Born into an impoverished family in 1959, the daughter of an active member of the CUC (Committee of Campesinos [Agricultural Workers]), she joined the union in 1979, despite the fact that several members of her family had been persecuted for their membership. In the early 1980s, the Guatemalan military launched a “scorched earth campaign,” burning more than four hundred Mayan villages to the ground, massacring hundreds of children, women, and the infirm; and brutally torturing and murdering anyone suspected of dissenting from the policy of repression. The military killed up to two hundred thousand people, mostly Mayan Indians, and forced one million people into exile. Menchú’s mother and brother were kidnapped and killed, and her father burned alive. While the Guatemalan army marched against its people, the rest of the world remained almost completely silent.
In 1983, Menchú published her autobiography, an account of the Guatemalan conflict. I, Rigoberta Menchú was translated into twelve languages, and was an influential factor in changing world opinion about support for the military. Fifteen years later, discrepancies were found about certain details of the work, but there is no dispute regarding its essential truth and the massive suffering of Guatemala’s indigenous peoples at the hands of the hemisphere’s most brutal military government. In 1992, Rigoberta Menchú Tum won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work. Menchú has been forced into exile three times for her advocacy within Guatemala. Despite the threats, she continues her work today on human rights, indigenous rights, women’s rights, and development. In 1993 she was named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. She has been active in trying to attain justice for the genocide of Guatemala, pursuing claims today in Spanish courts due to her country’s legacy of impunity for those in power.
