On December 10, Guatemalan President Oscar Berger and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Rigoberta Menchu Tum presented plans for a university in Guatemala that will
be directed and administered by Maya people. According to the Associated Press,
Berger said recognition of "the immense spiritual and cultural richness
of the Mayan people" would help Guatemala build "a multiethnic, multicultural
and multilingual state." The majority of Guatemala's 11.2 million inhabitants
are indigenous.
Among the areas of academic specialty at the Maya University of Guatemala
will be Maya medicine, agriculture, education, rights, community development,
mathematics, architecture, art, and astronomy. Indigenous, non-indigenous,
Guatemalan, and foreign students interested in specializing in Maya culture
will be able to attend the university. The school’s creation was written
into the Peace Accords of 1996, which were signed by the government and guerrilla
groups to end to 36 years of civil war. Academics have worked on the proposal
for the university for 15 years, but it is still unclear when the school will
open.
