Indian woman for president?

Maya Nobel winner Menchu eyes Guatemala presidencyGuatemala's Maya Indian Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchu said on Wednesday she may run for president this year in a bid to become the second indigenous head of state in Latin America.

Menchu, a defender of Maya Indian victims of Guatemala's bloody 1960-96 civil war and who grew up speaking no Spanish, said several political parties had asked her to run as president or vice president in the Sept. 9 election.

"We are seriously considering the proposals," she told reporters after marking the death of her father and over 30 other human rights activists in a Jan. 31, 1980 government raid on the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City.

About 200,000 people were killed in the civil war, most of them poor Maya Indians. Menchu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her human rights work.