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On International Human Rights Day, we wake up to a decree that further endangers Indigenous communities and their territories. Decree 1073 repeals a law that declared a territorial emergency until 2025 and required the INAI to conduct surveys and suspend evictions.

This decree contradicts Article 75, Section 17 of the National Constitution, which recognizes the ethnic preexistence of the indigenous peoples of Argentina and, in turn, guarantees community ownership of the lands they traditionally occupy. 

Its preambles are striking. They contradict international human rights standards in general and established human rights standards for indigenous peoples in particular. These standards have been adopted by both the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) and various United Nations bodies regarding certain collective rights enjoyed by indigenous peoples. Its preambles are provocative, capriciously alluding to the validity of rights that are guaranteed, and it is precisely this international law that has given rise to them.

Right of the “legitimate owners”

On the one hand, it ignores territorial rights ; it speaks of the right to property of legitimate owners, of tenants, of those who hold dominion over natural resources for the benefit of the provinces. Secondly, it stigmatizes indigenous peoples, claiming they coexist with groups protected by regulations that trample on the rights of citizens and aggravate the sovereign prerogatives of the State.

Third, it ignores the right to self-perception, self-registration, and the formation of communities. It maliciously interprets these extensions to Law 2660 as allowing the formation of several communities and their registration as claimants for recognition of territorial rights. On the other hand, it also mentions the right to protest and attempts and claims that it is trying to generate an internal war among us, among Indigenous peoples themselves. It demonizes the communities and accuses us of usurping lands and exercising violence, as if Indigenous peoples were the ones usurping our ancestral territories and exercising that violence. It fails to clearly state that the real violence is exercised by those in power, not only by political power, but also by those who carry out these evictions on the ground, the security forces.

Argentina does not comply with Justice 

In March 2020, Argentina was condemned internationally in the La Cajonada case (communities in Salta), which established that among the state's obligations is to grant property titles fairly to the community that is filing the complaint. It also required regularizing all its internal regulations to carry out the delimitation, demarcation, and granting of community property titles. Six days ago, the Inter-American Court again stated that the State is failing to comply with the ruling. Although the deadline for resolving the case is six years from the date of the ruling, the State has not seen any progress regarding this situation . To make matters worse, today the repeal of this registry, which the Court stated should regulate internal procedures to adapt it to the granting of community property titles, emerges.

Blame indigenous communities 

In the preamble to the decree published yesterday, environmental damage is mentioned, referring to the intentional and repeated fires in forest plantations and natural forests. This environmental damage is actually caused by them, for their business interests. Lewis 's or Benetton's fields, aren't burned , but why indigenous communities are always involved .

The most serious aspect of the decree is that it denies the genocide of Indigenous peoples committed by the Argentine state. The second-to-last recital states that no reason is evident to justify the continuation of the emergency, but rather that its prolongation would entail the consolidation of discrimination among Argentine citizens. Thus, it completely ignores a structural inequality, a foundational genocide of the Argentine state, and the discrimination generated by this state construction. Furthermore, it reverses the burden of proof, blaming us, Indigenous peoples, for this discrimination.

There is no doubt that this entire decree emphasizes what they refer to as private property. The decree, signed by virtually the entire government cabinet, ignores the changes made to the 1994 Constitution, the incorporation of international instruments that guarantee the principle of equality and non-discrimination, and the principle of cultural diversity. 

The cultural battle 

Publishing this decree on Human Rights Day is, on the one hand, a provocation and a campaign promise to wage a cultural battle against human rights. The government is vindicating President Roca and his genocide, and policies that made Indigenous peoples in Argentina visible are being erased. Indigenous names are being erased from some places, and colonialism is being vindicated (as was the case with the October 12th ad). 

In this first year of government, public media has also been banned from discussing climate change, the climate emergency, and the role of indigenous communities in defending their land. This is in addition to the closure of the INADI (National Institute of Statistics and Census), threats of eviction of Mapuche communities by National Parks in the south, and the ban on raising the whipala flag—all measures that not only violate the national Constitution but are designed to win what libertarians call "the cultural battle."