Resolution of Argentina Case

Resolution of case No. 10-2015: Argentine Government

Wednesday June 1, 2016

The International Buddhist Ethics Committee & Buddhist Tribunal on Human Rights,

Recalling the principles of Buddhist Law, the human rights and fundamental freedoms established by tribal and international instruments such as the ancient legal code (Vinaya) adopted by the spiritual commune (sangha) and the 169th Convention of the International Labour Organization (ILO) concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, approved by Argentina on April 7, 1992 through the National Law No. 24.071 and subsequently ratified in Geneva on July 3, 2000;

Whereas the Buddhist people is a tribal spiritual community, so that it does not only have individual human rights but also collective human rights, including political, economic, cultural and environmental rights without any discrimination;

Aware that the Buddhist people has a spiritual distinction with regard to the rest of the population of countries, such as cultural autonomy, and that it is because it is a tribal and native-Asiatic community with thousands of years of history of evolution of its ancestral knowledge and practices;

Profoundly worried about the situation of marginalization and social exclusion suffered by tribal peoples in Argentina, including violations of their human rights and fundamental freedoms, such as malnutrition, extreme poverty, pollution of natural resources and the expropriation of their lands, these situations being evidences of the indifference from State and cultural suppression of their traditions;

Deploring hunger-related deaths of hundreds of children from tribal peoples as a result of such practices of state discrimination;

Recalling that tribal peoples from Argentina have reached this situation of oppression and alienation from genocides and ethnic cleansings that occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and which have never received any compensation for such suffering;

Taking into consideration that in Argentina the Catholic Church is an institution greatly benefited by the State, receiving political power, economic backgrounds and cultural spaces, even though said entity has contributed directly and indirectly to Argentina's military dictatorship responsible for crimes against humanity;

Examining that the Catholic Church has been internationally denounced for perpetrating and conceal hundreds of thousands of worldwide cases of sexual abuses of underage youth, and that such a situation has not changed substantially;

Considering that the Catholic Church receives salaries coming from the Argentine State to its religious officials, which turns it virtually into an illegitimate Fourth Power and contrary to the democratic system and the republican separation between State and religion, reason why the laws 21745 and 21950 have been declared as unconstitutional and discriminatory, such as it has been notified to the Governor of Buenos Aires and the Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cult through an Opinion of the Buddhist Tribunal of Human Rights dated on April 25, 2016;

Reaffirming the ethical Judgment of the Buddhist Tribunal on Human Rights of December, 2015 against the Government of Argentina and its former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner for crimes against humanity, religious discrimination and Aboriginal exclusion, among others;

Showing consternation both for the enormous poverty and injustice in Argentina, as well as for the fact that the current president of that country has signed Article 1 of Decree 711 where it is allocated more than 16 million for administrative expenditure of the Fundación Pía Autónoma de Derecho Pontificio Scholas, a Catholic organization linked to the Vatican, the latter being a State that receives hundreds of millions of dollars from donations from around the world every day, even though it has been internationally denounced that these funds are not mainly used for humanitarian purposes;

I.                   Affirms that Buddhist Law is the most ancient customary juridical institution of defense of human rights, by protecting the inherent dignity of life, like the human right to peace and to a healthy environment, in order to build a global civilization governed by the Law.

II.               It calls for the fulfillment of human rights and fundamental freedoms of tribal people, especially of Buddhist communities and their distinctive spiritual lifestyle based on self-determination and liberty.

III.            It expresses the hope that the tribal peoples of Latin America recover their physical integrity, mental development and their spiritual evolution, fulfilling the dream of the Argentine hero Manuel Belgrano.

IV.            States that the different governments of Argentine Republic have ruled in favor of the powerful ones, the rich, successful and relatives, systematically incurring corruption and impunity, instead of governing for the general welfare of society.

V.                Solemnly establishes that every law or decree of the Argentine government which attempts against the equality and non-discrimination must be denounced by the Buddhist Ethics at an international level.

VI.            Declares the laws and decrees of the Argentine Government such as laws 21745 and 21950 and Article 1 of Decree 711 as illegal, among others, which have been established to partially and discriminatorily favor the Catholic Church, by continuing to violate the equality rights that have religious minorities and tribal people who inhabit the country, which have the human right to have access to the same benefits.

VII.         Condemns the interference in other countries' internal affairs which is usually carried out by the Vatican State, especially in its daily communications with Argentine officials in the executive, legislative and judicial Powers.

VIII.     Appeals to the compassionate wisdom lying potentially hidden in the Argentine Presidency in order that makes Buddhism appropriately, by means of an exemplary, righteous and unselfish lifestyle, by correcting with humility and effectiveness the serious errors denounced in this Declaration, in order to be capable of following the ethics of detachment, the path of reconciliation and the practice of solidarity developed by masters Gautama and Jesus in the world.