In 1992, Rigoberta Menchú Tum was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her peacemaking and racial reconciliation efforts in her native Guatemala. Guatemala entered a civil war in 1960 when poor, rural groups revolted against the land-holding elite, many of whom represented European and American interests. Throughout the war, which ended in 1996, the Guatemalan government carried out various civil rights abuses against the rebels and was accused of genocidal action toward Mayan and other Indigenous communities. This included Tum and her K’iche’ Maya family. They were already actively involved in social reform and women’s rights through the Catholic Church but became more involved in the resistance movement in the late 1970s. By the mid-1980s, Tum’s parents and both of her brothers had been tortured and killed by the Guatemalan government.