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On International Human Rights Day, we awoke to a decree that further endangers Indigenous communities and their territories. Decree 1073 repeals a law that declared a territorial emergency until 2025 and obligated the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs (INAI) to conduct land surveys and suspend evictions.

This decree contradicts Article 75, paragraph 17 of the National Constitution, which recognizes the ethnic pre-existence of the indigenous peoples of Argentina and, in turn, guarantees the possession and communal ownership of the lands they traditionally occupy. 

The preamble to this document is particularly noteworthy. It contradicts international human rights standards in general and established human rights standards for Indigenous peoples in particular. These standards have been upheld by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) and various United Nations bodies regarding certain collective rights held by Indigenous peoples. The preamble is provocative, arbitrarily alluding to the validity of rights that are already guaranteed and which, precisely, are enshrined in international law.

Right of the “legitimate owners”

On the one hand, it disregards territorial rights , speaking instead of the property rights of legitimate owners, tenants, and those who hold dominion over natural resources in favor of the provinces. Secondly, it stigmatizes Indigenous peoples, claiming they coexist with groups protected by regulations that infringe upon citizens' rights and aggravate the sovereign prerogatives of the State.

Third, it ignores the right to self-identification, self-registration, and the formation of communities. It maliciously interprets these extensions to Law 2660 as having allowed the formation of several communities and their registration as claimants for recognition of territorial rights. Furthermore, it also mentions the right to protest and attempts, and claims to be attempting, to incite internal conflict among us, among the Indigenous peoples themselves. It demonizes the communities and accuses us of usurping lands and perpetrating violence, as if Indigenous peoples were the ones usurping our ancestral territories and committing such violence. It fails to acknowledge that the true violence is perpetrated by those in power—not only by political power, but also by those carrying out these evictions on the ground, the security forces.

Argentina does not comply with justice 

In March 2020, Argentina was internationally condemned in the La Cajonada case (communities in Salta province), which established that among the state's obligations is to grant property titles to the very community that filed the lawsuit. The court also ruled that the state must regularize all its internal regulations to carry out the delimitation, demarcation, and issuance of community titles. Six days ago, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights reiterated 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 judgment, the state has shown no progress in this regard . To make matters worse, the very registry that the Court stated should regulate internal procedures to facilitate the issuance of community property titles has now been repealed.

Blaming Indigenous communities 

The preamble to the decree published yesterday mentions environmental damage, specifically the repeated and intentional fires in forest plantations and natural forests. This environmental damage is actually caused by them, for their own business interests. Why don't they burn their own fields, or those of Lewis or Benetton, but instead always involve Indigenous communities ?

The most serious aspect of the decree is its denial of the genocide of Indigenous peoples by the Argentine state. In the penultimate clause, it states that there is no justification for continuing the state of emergency; rather, its extension would only consolidate discrimination among Argentine citizens. This completely ignores structural inequality, a foundational genocide perpetrated by the Argentine state, and the discrimination generated by this state structure. Furthermore, it reverses the burden of proof, blaming us, the 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 cabinet, ignores the changes made to the 1994 constitution, the incorporation of international instruments that guarantee the principles of equality and non-discrimination, and the principle of cultural diversity. 

The culture war 

Publishing this decree on Human Rights Day is, on the one hand, a provocation and, on the other, a campaign promise to wage an anti-rights cultural battle. The government is glorifying President Roca and his genocide, while policies that made the Indigenous presence in Argentina visible are being erased. Indigenous names are being removed from some places, and colonialism is being glorified (as seen in the October 12th ad). 

In this first year of government, discussions about climate change or the climate emergency, as well as the role of Indigenous communities in defending their land, were also prohibited in public media. This comes on top of the closure of INADI (National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism), the threats of eviction by National Parks against Mapuche communities in the south, and the ban on flying the Wiphala flag—all measures that not only violate the national Constitution but are also designed to win what libertarians call “the culture war.”.