The two Argentinians: democracy and feudalism

As Chairman of the Human Rights Committee of the Inter-American Institute for Democracy, with Marcel Feraudwe made a working trip to Argentina from January 18 to 25 of this year with the aim of verifying on the spot the complaints received regarding the violation of human rights to the citizens of Santiago del Esterowho were allegedly dispossessed of their lands by officials who wield political and judicial power with the most notorious case of Manuel Asencio Ardiles and his family. The purpose of the trip also included monitoring the situation of military political prisoners in Buenos Aires, continuing the management begun in 2016 on the occasion of the Book Fair.

In Santiago del Estero we visited on January 20 Manuel Asencio Ardiles and his family, in a situation of absolute misery and the wife expressed that for a long time to this day she had not been able to buy medicine for her husband and we could see the living body of Ardiles in a partial state and invalidates conscience. The man who, according to his lawyer’s version, had cycled 20 kilometers to consult him only 5 months ago, was skeletal and practically unfit.

We have been able to verify the objective consequences of the eviction -which at the time was carried out by massive public force with violence and pressure as reported by the press- that the Ardiles family suffered when they were violently expelled from their field and his house of about 30 hectares, with loss of their possessions, cattle and possessions and locked up in a small and miserable house which the neighbors provided for them in charity.

The case was explained as a legal action taken by Federico Lopez Alzogaray President of the Superior Court of Justice of Santiago del Estero and was the subject of complaints from the public and the press in a timely manner, but which did not have the effect of stopping the de facto expulsion or sentence to the misery and death of the Ardiles family. A few days after our visit, on January 23, the death of Manuel Asencio Ardiles was reported, his family remains in misery without the possibility of justice.

The Inter-American Institute for Democracy is commissioning a legal analysis of the process, which will include the arguments of the President of the Superior Court of Justice, who, as a party, caused this whole situation.

However – in my view – due to the objective facts, the human rights violation of the late Ardiles and his family was flagrant as they were subjugated and held defenseless. Legal expert analysis can help establish responsibilities, but violations of life, legal certainty, right to work, private property, presumption of innocence and other human rights cannot be hidden.

We made visits and meetings with the political, administrative and judicial authorities of Santiago del Estero, the same ones who served to confirm the impotence of the Ardiles family and learn that there are many repetitive and extreme situations of this type. against families in this Province.

There is a violation of human rights in Santiago del Estero, tolerated and sometimes carried out by the authorities, in a relationship of impunity for the powerful and defenseless citizens who do not enjoy the “rule of law” and in whom fear and submission are noticed.

The difference between citizens in a democracy and vassals in feudalism it is freedom, the rule of law and the separation and independence of public powers which, as essential elements of democracy, are not respected in the cases analyzed in Santiago del Estero.

In Buenos Aires, we followed the situation of 2,623 Argentine citizens imprisoned for trials stemming from the so-called dirty war; all the prisoners are soldiers. are deceased 763 including 652 without formal condemnation.

“Human rights are the set of prerogatives based on human dignity, the effective realization of which is essential to the integral development of the person. This set of prerogatives is enshrined in the national legal order, in the political constitution, international treaties and laws.

Human rights are rights inherent in all human beings, regardless of their nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language or any other condition. We all have the same human rights without discrimination. These rights are linked, interdependent and indivisible.

This quote I made in Buenos Aires was completed in the press conference we offered on January 24, stating that:

We have important works and we have collected and published in our editorial fund the opinion of Argentine authors, jurists and analysts who allow us to affirm that “Argentina has political prisoners” for whom very few or no one claims because their executioners imposed the narrative of shame on human rights defenders.

Our presence, the meetings and the talks we have had in the field of Argentine political prisoners are intended to point out this atrocious anomaly and to demand that the abuses against people who have not had legal equality and therefore have been deprived of due legal process and subject to the situation and defenseless.

It is vital that democracy, leaders, political, social, trade union and citizen leaders, as well as the institutions of the Argentine Republic pay attention to a fact already publicly and internationally recognized by the press and experts: there is a democratic Argentina and feudal, not to say dictatorial or anti-democratic. In the first, the rights of citizens are respected, in the second there are vassals and political prisoners.

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