Bitter Fruit for Rigoberta (Page 3)

What is most offensive about Stoll's argument is his insistence on blaming the victims for the violence that the military visited upon them.

Stoll would counter this charge by separating Mayan communities from "outsiders"--those whom he baits as the urban "Marxist Left." But this distinction is too neat. As Stoll himself demonstrated in his previous work, Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala, the Maya have a long history of alliances with non-Indians. In the seventies, the Catholic activists, peasant organizers, Christian Democrats and guerrilla leaders were themselves Mayan.

Taken to its logical conclusion, Stoll's argument holds Menchú, her father and her family responsible for "allowing" the military to slaughter them and their neighbors.

In Guatemala, these assertions have all too real consequences. Throughout Guatemalan history, Indians have been portrayed as either violent brutes or docile innocents easily led astray. Elites continue to use these stereotypes to legitimize the violence. They argue either that the war was necessary to stop the Indians from rising up and avenging centuries of exploitation or that outside agitators were responsible for stirring up the Indians.

It is unfortunate that at this moment, when truth commissions and exhumations are opening the secrets of the recent past to scrutiny, Stoll's work provides both these stereotypes with a scholarly patina. As a military officer responsible for the 1982 scorched-earth campaign recently said, "The poor Indians, they don't get involved in anything. They were between two armies." He didn't even have to bother to footnote Stoll.

Next month, the United Nations Truth Commission (officially known as the Historical Clarification Commission) will release the results of its eighteen-month investigation of human rights violations in Guatemala. International human rights organizations expect that the report will confirm what they have been saying all along: The vast majority of Guatemala's political violence was committed by the Guatemalan military, with the support and knowledge of the US government. The controversy over Menchú should not be allowed to overshadow this truth.

• « Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.