Asylum Appeal to the Government of Argentina

Gary Spaulding Family Appeal

To the Minister of the Interior
Dr. Aníbal D. Fernandez
correcting the Buenos Aires Asylum Commission’s
negative decision (included in the Appendix, in relevant part).
Bariloche, Argentina
4 July 2005

Gary SPAULDING, his wife Vickie and their 5 children sojourning in the forest near the Salvation Army, Neighborhood No. 258, Bariloche, Argentina, petitioners for refugee status in the Republic of Argentina, respectfully present themselves to you and demonstrate the following:

The Committee for Refugees (CEPARE in Buenos Aires) on the 17th of December 2004 denied us the condition of refugee status. We interject this present Appeal against their negative decision, as follows:

[The original document of this Appeal was submitted on the 11th of July, 2005, written in long-hand but was not receivable for lack of photocopies. We resubmitted it with copies on 12 September 2005. Almost 4 years later our Appeal was denied without explanation. We were notified of it on 2 June 2009.]

Thank you for your patience, in that this Appeal was delayed due to the fact that we were not able to find help in understanding the legal terminology of the Spanish text in the Buenos Aires Asylum Commission’s (CEPARE) negative decision until only one week ago. We recognize this Appeal to be the most important document we have ever created – for our family, our progeny and for Christendom.

We have now perused the English translation of said negative decision, which denies us refugee status. We are convinced, given the pervasive convolution and/or omissions carried out against our Record of Facts, that there is little probability of our being able to unscramble the negative decision and overturn the negative mindset created by the Asylum Commission. Allow us to speak candidly – if said Commissioners were under our jurisdiction, given the immensity of their convolutions, omissions and unreasonable assertions, they would all be summarily fired. We also want to help re-vamp the process for administering political asylum justice in the Western world.

However, arising from said disparities from the Record of Facts, an imaginative theory is propounded, asserting that our claim of religious persecution is rooted, not in our humanitarian outreach to the families in Waco, Texas, in 1993, but in the fact that we provide Christian Homeschooling for our children. This otherwise sad divergence provides us with a singular and unexpected opportunity to introduce the tenets of our Christian Homeschool, in the hope of providing a cogent, urgent and cohesive argument that could bring relief to children suffering under status-quo thinking on the subject of their intellectual preparation, as follows:

A most central element in the Christian worldview is to provide our children with the skills necessary to read the Bible, to discriminate between right and wrong, to find truth in God’s universe, and to defend themselves against deception. This exact motivation gave rise to the advent of collectivized, state-organized public instruction of youth in the Western world. This fact is foundational and is organized in a lengthy article written by Mr. Peter S. Helland, Master’s in Christian Ministry from Bethel College, Mishawaka, Indiana, U.S.A. The article is entitled: The Deterioration of Education. From it we sight select excerpts, as follows:

Original purpose of education. The idea that children should be compelled to attend school began with Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. Until the time of Luther almost all of Europe was Catholic. The people had learned how to live for Jesus from the Pope, Bishops, and Priests. Luther said that the Catholic Church at that time was distorting the truth of God’s Word. Therefore, he translated the Bible into the language of his people so they could read it for themselves. Luther then persuaded the German Princes to require all the youth to attend school so that they could READ THE BIBLE. He argued that if their young men had to enlist in the army in times of war surely their youth could be made to attend a school to obtain the knowledge needed in the struggle with the Devil for their souls. So in the year 1559, the first state-run public schools were established in Württenburg, Germany.

Thus, clearly the public school movement in the Western world used to have Christ Jesus at its foundation because Jesus is the central figure in the Bible. Consequently, it is not us who are in the rebellious movement for having retained Jesus at the center of our universe, but the U.S. Government school movement, aligned with United States Judges and their militant, atheistic agenda. Said differently, the recent shift in intellectual thinking to purge the knowledge of Jesus from the minds of the youth in the Western world is a rebellious movement and lacks lawful jurisdiction, from a Christian perspective. We enclose a copy of this article with this Appeal. It is found on page 19 of our publication entitled “a Jesus newspaper.”

Another quote from Mr. Helland’s article, page 25, states the following:

In the 1700’s Sir William Blackstone, the greatest legal authority of that century, stated in his famous “Commentaries” that PARENTS had total authority over their children’s education under the Common Law.

It is compelling to note two facts at this point:

1) Mr. Helland was fired from his teaching position with the South Bend, Indiana, Government Schools for having read his Bible silently and noiselessly to himself during a silent student study period. He appealed his case to the United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., but to no avail.

2) I, Gary, was fired from my teaching position with the Berrien County, Michigan, Government Schools for having made this Jesusnewspaper available to the students outside of classtime. An appeal to the School Board was to no avail.

Central to our claim of religious persecution in the United States is the use of the law to expel Jesus Christ from the heart and mind of the people. An example of this movement is seen in our Proof Document submitted to the Asylum Commission in Buenos Aires, from the Chicago Tribune of March 1st of 2003, as follows:

… a court outlawed the phrase «one nation under God» (from the National Pledge of Allegiance) for use in U.S.A. government schools in the northwestern states: an appeal by the Bush Administration to the High Court was seen as unlikely.

This, however, is but one step in a long campaign by the United States Courts to rid the nation of its knowledge of Christ, to remove the nation from His foundational authority (for Christians, Jesus is Divine, is part of the Godhead, and is God) and to pursue a Godless and God-hostile agenda instead. We discern behind all of this a spirit of militant atheism under the guise of religious freedom, tolerance, diversity and plurality. The repercussions of this agenda pervade our petition for asylum. They also provide us with a mandate to call Christians to re-assert God-given jurisdiction by providing Christian Homeschooling for their children, as we do for ours, thus exercising a lawful alternative to status-quo intellectual thought, and to abate the pernicious effects of the Western public school movement as it becomes increasingly atheistic.

Vickie’s testimony states: “We have never sent our children to the U.S. government schools because they are synonymous with drugs, sex and violence.”

From Gary’s testimony: “It’s dangerous for children to go to U.S. Government schools … the school authorities have to admit that their plan is not the best for the teaching of children. There are many families that are angry at what is happening in the Government schools – metal detectors in the entrances, police officers in hallways and police cars stationed at the curbside, searches for illegal drugs, etc.”

It is common knowledge that the primary course on the menu at U.S. Government schools is, neither learning nor curriculum, but discipline, more precisely, lack of discipline. It’s like sending your little ones into a barnyard on one hand (menagerie), or into a war zone, on the other hand, and, although it’s unbelievable, in that same country parents are prosecuted for chastising their children, and children are allowed to divorce their parents in the courts, by an authority that certainly does not emanate from God (!) and minor children aren’t even authorized to enter into contract! These, to us, are more among a growing list of oxymorons and incongruities. The alarming illiteracy rate among students is a reliable litmus test to the non-viability of the experiment, and statistics reveal that about 20% of students finish school as functional illiterates, unable to perform basic adult reading and writing tasks. It is also a thing of the past to agonize over the moral turpitude of your children’s classroom playmates, and it is sad. When Jehovah God is expelled from an institution or a nation, with him is also expelled God-based righteousness and morality. What’s left is the culture of the barnyard or the jungle, summed up in the historic words of Charles Darwin: the “survival of the fittest,” or if it makes you feel good, do it.

Closer to home, the city of Neuquen, Argentina, was recently in the news because of a crisis of teen pregnancies and sexual disease in the government schools (Rio Negro newspaper article entitled: “Neuquen launches a campaign to prevent youth pregnancies & AIDS”).

The crisis in Western status-quo thinking and policies is perhaps no more clearly visible than in Switzerland where we were living last year at this time. Statistics published there in October of 2003, while we were living near Fribourg, divulged to the world the heart-rending fact that, one youth of Switzerland between 20-24 years of age kills himself every day of the year, and 3 try to, at 1000 per year. Published along with these statistics is the fact that this suicide rate is the highest per capita in Europe. We are heartbroken and respond, in part, by calling parents of the Western World to re-evaluate status-quo thinking, primarily regarding the early childhood programming and indoctrination of their children.

We believe in the wisdom that says that, in accordance with their parents’ authority, Christian children have a God-given right to be indoctrinated into a worldview that accommodates Christianity, with Jesus at its center. This falls under the people’s right of religious freedom and the right to pursue happiness found in the U.S. nation’s original documents. Other children have the right, in accordance with their parents’ authority, to be indoctrinated into a worldview where God is absent or defined differently.

It is also a Christian child’s right not to have to fear being stolen from his family by the child police or police of the government school collective. It is also possible that the overt and covert persecution of Christian Homes-chooling families in the United States and elsewhere could be part of the prophetic “War against the Saints” contained in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, the last book of the Bible. These are real issues according to Brenda Scott’s book and our Proof Document: “Out of Control – Who’s Watching Our Child Protection Agencies?,” pp. 143 & 144 (Huntington House Publishers, 1994): “On the basis of anonymous tips, houses are illegally searched, parents arrested, children abducted from their homes & schools, and families are thrown into emotional & financial ruin. People can be sent to prison on child abuse charges without ever being allowed to cross-examine their accusers… Nor is the accused allowed the opportunity to cross-examine testimony against him. This is clearly a violation of the United States Constitution.” [This book was submitted as Proof Document and was not returned so we could have it for doing this Appeal. An excerpt out of it authenticates the claim that the child police wage war against homeschooling families “under the table,” as in covert persecution. We are therefore unable at this time to provide the specific quote and reference.]

There is nothing more consistent with Christian ideals than for parents to care for their young, providing them with many skills, also with a marketable trade. There is also nothing more precious than family in the Christian worldview.

We are convinced that parents with normal skill levels can pass the basic skills, like reading, writing and arithmetic, to their children. There is a vast resource accumulating for homeschooling families over the internet. Even foreign languages can now be learned interactively by CD’s with a computer.

We want to help other homeschooling families. Vickie wants to make a “learn to spell” program available over the internet that she has created in Visual Basic. Gary is presently tutoring English language in exchange for food among poor families in Bariloche. Gary is a professor of English, French, German (and Spanish language for non-natives).

Interested parents would do well to read the book entitled “Better Late than Early” by Dr. Raymond Moore with the Hewitt Research Foundation, connected with Loma Linda University in California. According to his research, children learn cognitive skills AFTER their readiness is complete with much greater ease than BEFORE such time. He also claimed, according to his scientific research, homeschooled children have the best of all worlds. I spoke with him personally at a speaking engagement in the 1980’s at Ball State University College of Teaching.

Regarding the issue of foundational authority in the U.S. nation, it is significant to draw to your attention that the date of this writing, 4 July 2005, is the 229th anniversary of the signing of the North American Colonists’ Declaration of Independence from the authority of their Sovereign, King George, of England. In this document, which we studied today in our Homeschool, the colonists invoked Creator God’s authority for authorizing this most solemn measure. The Creator’s existence is affirmed at the onset, and He is referred to at the conclusion as “the Supreme Judge of the World (to judge) the rectitude of our intentions.”

According to this foundational document, governments are instituted among men for the express purpose of securing rights endowed unto the people by God. Their wisdom provided for the “altering, abolishing, or throwing off of such government that becomes destructive of these rights,” tacitly including the destruction of God’s supreme authority over the nation.

Founding Father and second President of the United States, John Adams, said words that overwhelmingly mitigate on our behalf, as follows: “You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.” The “Great Legislator” referred to here is none other than the God that has now been ostracized from the heart of the United States nation.

This single act of the United States Judiciary, abolishing the knowledge of God and His authority over the nation, and to be applied through U.S. Government Schools, could be argued by scholars to have commuted the government in Washington D.C. from “de jure” to “de facto,” opening the debate as to whether the rebellion against King George continues to possess necessary authority. We contend it does not. We argue forcibly that the United States Government has enthroned itself above the God by whose authority it was created.

For these and other reasons we have secured and safeguarded our children’s best interest through Christian Homeschooling, and it is part of our family’s culture (note from p. 39 of the UNHCR guidebook for Asylum Petitioners: “This organization endeavors to promote and defend the culture … of refugees”). We provide this service to our children without prejudice – legal, lawful or otherwise. We are the God-endowed guardians and trustees of our children and maintain paramount jurisdiction over them, with Creator God as our Senior Partner, knowing that one day we will give account of this partnership and of ourselves before God, as it is stated: “… each of us will give an account of himself to God,” Romans 14:12.

Consequently, we neither send our children to places God has forsaken, nor to places that have forsaken Him. Among such places is the U.S. Government educational collective. (To us, the world of television is also God-forsaken, working hand-in-hand with the government school as the two most powerful engines for shaping a Godless society, leaving Church associations to play only marginal roles [we hope we’re wrong about this]. As such, television is not welcome in our home).

Incidentally, Jesus was a victim of collectivist ideology and was stripped of his individual rights in exchange for the rights of the masses, as it is written, in the words of Caiaphas the High Priest: “It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish,” John 11:50. Man is known to seek a lower self-image when amalgamated into a collective than when raised to the individual self worth of being created uniquely by God. This is no less true in an educational collective.

The Christian argument here is that every thought is to be rendered captive to Jesus, as it is written: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ,” 2 Cor. 10:5. Therefore, for Christians to send their children to an atheistic indoctrination facility would create an oxymoron of sorts, in that such facility is a stronghold against the knowledge of God. (See 2 Cor. 10:4). It is also a facility through which the knowledge of God is being extinguished in the U.S. nation, so to which applies this wisdom: “Since they did not think it worth while to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice…” Rom. 1:28-29.

Consequently, we provide Christian Homeschooling for our children as their God-given right, in accordance with our parental authority, honoring Jesus’ words: “Let the little children come unto me and hinder them not … and … beware not to offend these little ones who belong to me,” … and in the teachings of Apostle Paul “… bring up your children in the training and instruction of the Lord,” Mt. 19:14; Mk. 9:42; Eph. 6:4.

The question as to whether the child police or the police of the government school collective have direct jurisdiction over minor children who are: 1) not authorized to enter into contract for themselves, 2) are not clearly in need of government services, 3) their parents’ jurisdiction has not already been signed over to said agents, and 4) who are not orphans – all would-be authorities over them must secure the parents’ signature first before touching the children. So the answer to this question is “No.”

If, as according to the speculative imagination of the Buenos Aires Asylum Commission, the police in uniform and child police trespassed upon our family farm in South Bend, Indiana (near Chicago, Illinois), to pursue tactics against us for our Christian Homeschool, it would have been an encroachment upon the children’s God-given rights and would have constituted religious persecution, all the same. Indeed, Brenda Scott, in her book, referred to above, affirms the notion that the child police persecute homeschooling families by covert means, because of the limitless power they have arrogated unto themselves, unavailable through other agencies. Furthermore, to pursue tactics against us without ever divulging their intentions openly would constitute a covert operation, which is worse than persecuting us for the stated “Waco connection.” These things are also proscribed by the U.S. Constitution. We also believe that the Davidian families were homeschooling their children. This incidental similarity, however, was never verbalized by the police and, therefore, is not admissible as part of the Record.

In conclusion, allow these brief statements to suffice for answering the challenge by the Asylum Commission by introducing our Christian Homeschool and for calling for a reformation of status-quo thinking among Christians for the post-God era regarding the subject of the primary programming and indoctrination of our children, and for restoring Western society to its historical Christian roots.

Nevertheless, although this was an unfortunate digression from the Record of Facts submitted with our case, we welcome it as a Providential arrangement.

Now please find in the following outline, in condensed form, the basic, pivotal violations of our Record of Facts, paragraph by paragraph, referring to the Section of the Asylum Commission’s negative decision entitled “Considering” (we have enumerated the paragraphs of this Section on our copy) [See Appendix, page 18]:

Paragraph No. 9 : In this paragraph the Commission spells out the foundation for their speculation that our Christian Homeschool was targeted by the U.S. police. This is purely imaginative in light of the Record of Facts and we would move the Mr. Minister of the Interior to quash such imaginative and groundless speculation both in this paragraph and henceforth. To lend credence to groundless speculation would constitute fraud.

Paragraph No. 10 : It is a Crime against Humanity to block a Humanitarian Convoy transporting humanitarian relief to people in a humanitarian and life-threatening crisis. If the truth were known WE were the public servants and the FBI were the criminals, and guilty of, not only misdemeanors, but high crimes including, but not limited to terrorism, torture, annihilation of a group of people and violating a host of their own laws and principals. Power, water & telephone were cut off to the Mount Carmel Campus in which it was known that more than two dozen children were sheltering with their parents (Waco is the city in Texas and Mount Carmel was the name of the specific sight of the massacre). It was reported in the local newspaper, The Waco Tribune Herald: “We need baby milk, baby food, baby diapers …” etc., which is an initial indication of the FBI’s crimes, including the use of boisterous & provocative recordings played in the night, as in the familiar Nancy Sinatra sound track: “you going to play with fire? you’re going to get burned … these boots are made for walking, walking over you!” recordings of chickens being slaughtered & miscellaneous screeching sounds in the nighttime; helicopter search lights flashing into the windows & tanks lunging with engines roaring, crushing vehicles, children’s toys, bicycles, and go-carts.

Following is an excerpt from our Proof Document, a transcript of CBS (television) Sixty Minutes II with Dan Rather, of 25 January 2001: RATHER: “Investigators had concluded that two of these devices were used (the devices being U.S. Government incendiary shells that started the fire). Though most experts overwhelmingly still believe that the Davidians started the fire … The FBI was caught in a lie.” Elsewhere in that transcript:

Frequently Asked Questions: Q: We have heard that CBS 60 Minutes did its own infra red test for gunfire and that it showed that the [U.S.] government forces at Waco [Texas] machine-gunned the Branch Davidians [in 1993]. Is that true? A: Yes it is.

As Proof Documents we also submitted photo images secured from the internet at Waco Massacre imagesshowing U.S. Government tanks smashing the buildings where 85 Davidians were sheltering, only minutes before the holocaust that killed 76 – only 9 escaped with their life.

Subsequently, when the police used the word “Waco” against us, we had vivid images of what that might entail, and our well-grounded fears were vindicated and guided us to safety.

Paragraph No. 11 : This paragraph imagines that we were “able to lead a normal life” after a couple of legal formalities had transpired. The fact is that after having filed necessary paperwork upon one of four return trips to Waco, to the McClennan County Courthouse, an arrest warrant was issued against my co-worker, Olaitan Oyetunbi, also of South Bend, and me and the public was informed by newspaper that we had NOT filed our paperwork. This was criminal mistreatment but was not to be the last. Furthermore, we were denied our Right to Notice, having learned of the arrest warrants from our neighbors. The life we were forced to lead was clearly to become everything but normal. Even 10 years later we were expelled from Andorra without a Hearing for a crime we are alleged to have committed in Waco (in 1993), even though that alleged crime was never adjudicated and remains to this day as a mere, though severely prejudicial, accusation.

Paragraph No. 12 : This paragraph is a convolution of our testimony that states:

… when asked about his life between the years 1993 and 1997, he (Gary) affirmed that in those years that he [purchased and] prepared a piece of land for camping with his son L’abri, and the police in various forms (child police, uniformed police, health police, social workers, etc.) went to threaten them because they did not have a house and the campsite was alleged to be a danger for children, with threats to steal the children … for that motive he presented himself before the French Embassy in Chicago seeking political asylum…

AND ELSEWHERE:

… in the year 1997 the FBI sent an agent searching for him (Gary), to solve, by means of Gary’s knowledge, the question of who had committed a terrorist act in another city in the State of Indiana, a city in which the petitioner had never been. He affirmed that, in the imagination of the FBI, he was a terrorist and, as such, could have been in the inner circle of information regarding said terrorist act… The conversation took place by telephone. The agent of the FBI asked him for information about that terrorist act, in the Southern part of Indiana. He responded that he is a humanitarian missionary and not a terrorist…

The convolution of the Record is so severe, that, may we note, the claim of “no inconveniences and the petitioners seem never to have seen their life, safety or freedom threatened,” to us is perfectly and precisely the opposite, signaled by the words: “… threats to steal the children … threaten them … in the imagination of the FBI he [is] a terrorist … he presented himself before the French Embassy in Chicago seeking political asylum …” This mistreatment of the Record of Facts puts our family in severe jeopardy and is grossly fraudulent, and this fraud makes us very angry. Vickie’s testimony states that: ” …[We] were treated as criminals…” As the Record concurs, we were designated as “cultists” by local police, a characterization that is extremely prejudicial, resulting in a severe stigmatization, in light of what happened to the government-defined “cultists” in Waco.

When you have been stigmatized as “cultist” you have no rights on earth, and the “religious freedom” defense is not applied. 99.9% of the U.S. population looked the other way while the Davidian families were being mistreated – to avoid legal problems, no doubt – and claimed after they were murdered: “They got what they deserved.” There is likely very little difference in how the Davidians of Mount Carmel were done away with and how the “witches” in the Salem Witch Trials were done away with. In the latter, the accused “witch” was demonized and teamed up against so that the accused could be cut down while the accusers looked on, whereas the former were demonized and then cut down while almost everybody looked the other way, including 99.9% of the Christian population.

We struggle to understand, 12 years after-the-fact, why none of the humanitarian relief organizations mobilized their crews and equipment to help the Davidian families – even organizations that are known to help hurting people on both sides of a conflict and who have committed in their charters to help hurting people “without prejudice.” In hindsight, that omission saved their crew members from a host of persecution and legal problems. But, if the Davidian adults were heretics, fanatics, or reprobates, we set out to help them regardless of their beliefs or sins, as fellow human beings, for it is written: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.” (Luke 6:32-33)

Paragraph No. 13 : We have moved, in a prior paragraph, that the Minister of the Interior quash further reference on the part of the Commission to its imaginative “Homeschooling theory.” The established Record does, however, reflect four major causes for alarm and difficulty: 1) The child police refused repeatedly to state their intentions when asked directly 3 times by Mama Vickie [The 6th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution proscribes such refusal on the part of duly authorized police agents.]; 2) The child police, at the event of an interview, refused to accept an Affidavit from me (Gary) [I have a right to testify via an affidavit on my own behalf]; 3) The child police tried to have me (Gary) arrested, after said interview, with absolutely no stated accusation nor production of authority. [Again the 6th Amendment was violated and the 4th also, which state: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized … and … the accused shall enjoy the right … to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; and to be confronted with the witnesses against him.”]; and 4) It was only AFTER we were gone from house and home that the police divulged their intentions, precisely and exclusively stating to one of our next door neighbors, Vickie’s cousin: “our connection to the Waco sect.” In reality, we had no connection to the Davidian families other than a Christian compassion for fellow human beings, beyond the fact that we lived more than 1,200 miles away.

Clearly we lacked knowledge of the police’s motivation BEFORE leaving home, but soon thereafter the Waco connection was made explicitly clear. This proof also makes clear that the Asylum Commission is gravely in error on this point.

Fortunately, I was forewarned by the Holy Spirit early in the morning of the attempted false arrest, on the 6th of May, 2002, “Comport yourselves as sheep among wolves.” We did as sheep do – we fled.

Paragraphs No. 14 & 15 : In these paragraphs the Commission’s negative logic seems to break down, affirming our position rather than weakening it, in that the Indiana Department of Education is not authorized to approve nor disapprove homeschooling, nor is it authorized to hinder parents who are providing homeschooling for their children. Furthermore, our Christian Homeschool is not organized under the Indiana Association of Home Educators nor is it confined to the way in which said Association construes the stipulations of the law. I, Gary, was inspired by the Holy Spirit in 1978 to provide Christian Homeschooling for our children, even before we had children, and even before there was such a thing as a homeschooling movement in the United States. This was while I was studying a course entitled “Child Growth and Development” by correspondence for Secondary Teacher’s Credentials. The logic of the inspiration was that our children have to be able to come and go with us as the Spirit would lead, as would befit our lives as Christian missionaries. (We are also participants in the home Church movement since the early 1970’s.) Now God has called us to Argentina.

Our children have been greatly blessed by homeschooling while facing the hardships of multiple displacements during the past three years. I was also forewarned earlier by the Holy Spirit, in 1965, to “prepare for hard times.” These words of guidance have been indispensable for surviving the reversals in United States worldview, ethics and values. Incidentally, our Christian fabric has similarities with that of the Salvation Army and we point out that the movement’s founders, William Booth and his wife, homeschooled their daughter, Catherine Bramwell Booth.

Paragraph No. 16 : In this paragraph the “Homeschooling theory” is again set forward by the Commission, imagining that the child police put themselves in contact with us “Due to legal problems derived from the Homeschooling practice.” We counter this imagination by pointing out that the child police created its own problems by resorting repeatedly to illegal measures against us. There was no legaldimension worthy to mention in any of the police’s actions.

The Record supports the opposite of what the Commission claims in this paragraph. Their statement is false and fictitious, as follows: “…there seems to be NO evidence that [the measures by the child police] were due to persecution of the Spaulding family by the authorities as a consequence of their religious beliefs or their past actions, such as the Waco incident.” A true and accurate rendering of the Facts has the police stating expressly: “We are searching for two things – the Spaulding children and Gary’s military bunkers connected to the sect in Waco.”

At this point, the Commission also omits mentioning that the child police attempted to have Gary arrested falsely, which fact further erodes their untenable position. It is in this omission that we see the Commission as pathetic and incompetent, yet there are more omissions to come.

Paragraph No. 17 : The repeated convolutions by the Commission are tiring, yet must be unscrambled. It is true, we were not approached by any people in positions of authority during our one year living in Chicago after we left home, our last year before leaving the country, but that was obviously a result of our wisdom for remaining off-the-record and out-of-sight of their radar. However, once arriving in Andorra, the “Waco connection” was returned to center stage and we suffered severely, physically, mentally and emotionally, due to that unjustifiable expulsion. (See: Proof Document, “Expulsion Notice” from the Andorran police.)

At an earlier moment, while making our exodus from the United States, as the Record reflects from Vickie’s interview: “… as the customs agents were occupied filling out paperwork and investigating whether the travelers had been in Asia, as in that moment there was the so-called ‘Sudden and Acute Respiratory Syndrome Disease,’ they forgotto scan the passports and thus we were able to depart. [To us this was a miracle.]” The Commission’s words: “…they left the country legally, without trouble,” are a radical departure from the Statement of Facts and, to us, constitute fraud.

Paragraph No. 18 : In this paragraph the Commission omits the most crucial and unmistakable proof that our persecution stems primarily from the “Waco connection” which is precisely what the 1993 date on the Andorran Police report is referring to. A second source of persecution is behind the 1994 date on the police records which resulted in my (Gary’s) car being stolen by police and I was put in jail because I do not bear Washington D.C.’s central serial number out of religiously motivated conviction, and I told these things to the arresting officer, who claims to be a Christian. (Officer Ben Enders, Toll Road Post, Indiana State Police.) These, by the way, as stated earlier, are but mere accusations on my police record and were never adjudicated. Had they been adjudicated I would have been able to expose the police’s criminal malpractice. Then, the pinnacle of the Commission’s omissions is that, due to Waco-connected persecution, we are seen as: “a risk to national security.” People who are accused of being a “risk to national security,” on one hand, and who are accused of being connected to terrorists, on the other hand, and especially upon re-entering the United States or upon entering their jurisdictional territory, are known to be sent on a one-way ticket to the Guantanamo War-on-Terrorism Detention Center. I, Gary, would be in that number, by fraud, and the children would be stolen by the police from Mama Vickie.

Regarding Guantanamo is an article found in the local Rio Negro newspaper here in Bariloche of 11 November 2003, page 22, which highlights United States Government abuses, as follows:

The United States created a prison in Guantanamo that functions entirely on the edge of the law … Inside the walls of this prison the foreigners can be detained indefinitely, without legal charges, nor proofs against them, without access to their families, friends, nor legal counsel, and without the opportunity to establish their innocence … (Following is the caption to the article’s photo of said prison): The prisoners suffer hard conditions of captivity, according to Human Right’s groups.

The fact that we were blocked from entering ferries bound to Great Britain and Ireland, both mentioned in this paragraph, were as repercussions due to our having submitted a formal accusation against the United States Government with the World Court, the War Crimes Tribunal, in the Netherlands. We have suffered untold distress and hardship for having undertaken these noble and altruistic deeds out of Christ-like compassion. The abuse of our life’s record makes us very sad. We feel it makes God sad also.

Paragraph No. 19 : In this paragraph the Commission claims that our being blocked from boarding two ferries bound for England and Ireland had nothing to do with persecution stemming from the U.S. If the truth were known, it would be easy to understand that, at that time, England and the U.S. were allied in a highly illegal and unlawful strike against Iraq, and, as the Record reflects, we had attempted to seek an injunction against the U.S. Government in the World Court – that was the sole reason for our travels to Holland in March of 2004. The British immigration official stationed at the Hoek Von Holland Seaport stated candidly upon denying us entry: “I know this is a politically motivated decision, but the answer is no.” This, to us, is persecution against us for carrying passports of a tyrannical nation which we intended to enjoin from further abuses.

Paragraph No. 20 : In the considerations of this paragraph the Commission has falsified the Record by failing to record in the List of Proof Documents, the envelope we submitted as Proof Document containing our then two-month-old daughter Ciela Spaulding’s passport application documents sent by Vickie by registered mail to the United States Embassy in Switzerland, in September of 2004, which the Department Chief, Mr. Christopher Derrick, refused to receive and it was returned to us unopened – that is how we have it in our possession, and it remains unopened to this day! It is criminal abuse of authority to require citizens to provide documents and then to refuse to receive them by registered mail. We consider the omission of this Proof Document to be further fraud on the part of the Buenos Aires Asylum Commission. An additional and most revealing Proof Document was also omitted from the Commission’s List, namely, the cash register receipt acknowledging payment-in-full for Ciela’s passport, which, due to their crimes, we never received.

Are we expected to continue to absorb fraud and criminal malpractice emanating from three continents? No, and obviously not, yet we have. It is a sad commentary on international law & justice for asylum seekers. We are hoping sometime in the future to be able to exert our influence toward having the political asylum process re-evaluated and re-vamped, in light of the fraud that we have faced in Europe and beyond.

Mr. Minister of the Interior, it is high time for us to receive an honorable reception and we appeal to you to overturn the Commission’s negative decision.

Having said this, may we point out emphatically that our treatment by the United States authorities at the Bern, Switzerland Embassy was irregular, abnormal and highly suspect because they already had in-hand all necessary documentation, including Affidavits of Signature Consent forms from both of us parents. Gary’s physical presence requirement was an arbitrary and highly suspect measure. Subsequently, we consider it a miracle that the Paraguay Embassy staff allowed us to circumnavigate all of these obstructions by granting little Ciela Rose Spaulding a visa even without a U.S. passport, allowing her International Birth Certificate from the Fribourg hospital to suffice. We are immensely grateful for the solidarity of the Consul and his staff. May God bless them! The defrauding Ciela of her passport is a most blatant proof of the U.S. Government’s illegal tactics against us, now on two continents. It is obvious to us that our relationship is definitively and irreparably broken, and it is hopeless to suppose that she will ever be granted her U.S. passport, by right, without further arbitrary demands.

Paragraph No. 21 : This paragraph, both now, as before, should read just the opposite. The objective facts are at least three-fold, as submitted in our Proof Documents: 1) the video of the Waco Massacre entitled “Waco – The Rules of Engagement,” 2) the stealing and abuse of children by United States officials as featured in Brenda Scott’s book entitled “Out of Control – Who’s Watching Our Child Protection Agencies?,” and 3) the Andorra police document “Expulsion Notice” which provides proof that our persecution stems from the “Waco connection,” and that we are subsequently considered by U.S. & Andorran police as a “national security risk,” among others. It is unfathomable to us how the Commission can claim that our case lacks objective facts to support our fears!

Paragraph No. 22 : In this paragraph, beyond issues that have already been addressed, the Commission resorts to the lowest form of discrediting us and our testimony, by claiming, by inference, that we have lied about the miraculous border crossing during our exodus through the Ft. Lauderdale Seaport, which, quite the contrary, discredits the Commission, and not us. Our statements and claims have all been made in the highest judicial form, affirming that we have spoken: “the truth, to the best of our knowledge, so help us God,” followed by our signature. The same applies to this document and to our interviews. If the Commission wishes to present evidence challenging the veracity of our statements we welcome the opportunity to face such accusations. Otherwise, injudicious innuendoes and inferences of this sort are highly unprofessional, unwelcome, and are to be struck down. In brief, we stated truthfully, that OUR PASSPORTS WERE NOT SCANNED ELECTRONICALLY AT THE FT. LAUDERDALE SEAPORT AT THE EVENT OF OUR EXODUS. God is our witness.

Lastly, the Commission is ignorant of the fact that, as reported in the March 1st, 2003, Chicago Tribune, the first criminal background checks for all passengers arriving in and departing from the United States was announced to begin with Delta Airlines at the end of March in international airports. We couldn’t leave the country until April, the following month, so we therefore chose to exit by means of a seaport, confident that the drastic security measures would not yet be in place. Besides this rationale, the scrutiny at the border is known to be more stringent for travelers entering the country than exiting. For this confidence we were willing to pay triple the price to leave by ocean liner rather than by airplane.

Please note, additionally, that Vickie was the one who dealt with the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland, as she was not arrested in Waco. She provided the Absent Parent Consent Form with Gary’s signature & his passport, as required by law, but Gary never darkened their doorstep. Furthermore, the passport renewal formalities while in Chicago, mentioned in this paragraph, were all handled by Vickie.

Paragraph No. 23 : In this paragraph the Commission seeks to discredit the subjective element of our case, to which we can only respond by saying that every time we recount our story to peasants on three continents they exhibit expressions of fear and dread. If the Commission claims not to experience any fear, with due respect, we would deem this claim to be doubtful. Even the Swiss Asylum Commissioner said the following words: “You speak constantly of your fears, and I can even understand them if I put myself in your place.” An official witness of these interviews in Switzerland, Mme. André, submitted a formal Affidavit highlighting Vickie’s fears, thereby emphasizing the relevance of her fear within the Asylum proceedings, which is exactly the opposite of the Buenos Aires Commission’s claim that “their fear was not relevant in their leaving the country.” Those who view the video footage of the Mount Carmel massacre realize that the “fear of being Waco’d” is a mighty motivator, so great in Vickie that, as the Record reflects, Vickie suffered a spontaneous miscarriage at the end of her last interview. Subsequently, our little one was born dead on 3 August 2003, in Vallorbe, Switzerland in the refugee processing facility.

Paragraph No. 24 : We are unfortunately not in possession of Appendix 3, referred to in this paragraph, as it was never given to us, and are therefore unable to share in the discussion.

Paragraph No. 25 : It is interesting to ponder how Special Secretary Mr. Abdelfattah Amor could herald a state of religious freedom in the United States where God is no longer welcome in the National Pledge of Allegiance; Jesus is not welcome in classroom curricula; Christian school teachers are fired for taking their Christianity on campus (meanwhile sorcerers, proselytizers for false spirituality, as in the Harry Potter series of books, and a panoply of evil spirits of Halloween are granted unlimited access to student populations); the Indianapolis Baptist Temple was razed by U.S. tax police bulldozers in part because it was not registered as a state corporation, on one hand, and on the other hand because the parishioners insisted that Jesus Christ was their CEO (Chief Executive Officer); God has been ostracized from the state marriage contract, yet the state is NOT the author of Holy Matrimony; I, Gary, have been arrested on several public right-of-ways for proactive Christian activities, and was arrested and dragged away while doing a Jesus outreach at the Elkhart County Fair in 1992, (see Proof Document Elkhart Truth newspaper article entitled “Trial of Faith”); Vickie and I were arrested while holding a prayer vigil on a public right-of-way in front of a building where children are killed and their bodies are sold in plastic bags to be turned into brain elixirs, cosmetics and ghoulish  (1) replacement body parts  (2) ; and most recently the War god has replaced Jehovah God so that the bombs sent to Iraq can enjoy a religious blessing; and, as stated earlier, Gary’s car was stolen by the Indiana State Police because he does not bear Washington D.C.’s central serial number, referred to euphemistically as the Social Security Number because, due to God’s jurisdiction, he cannot receive the Mark of the Beast, a mark of alien Lordship. For us, Jesus is Lord of lords. (See Rev. 13:16 & 17; Rev. 19:16.)

Unfortunately, the reality in the U.S. is similar to what happened in the Soviet Union where the laws written in magnificent volumes and guarded in impressive libraries did not reflect the reality as applied by the police in the streets. Even Moscow granted religious liberty to clergy who agreed to register their Church under the police’s authority. Such Churches could then be used as reference points along the avenues of the city. The unregistered ones were bulldozed, as was the Indianapolis Baptist Temple. It is also inscribed on the “volumes” in the United States that a person’s compliance with central government’s head tax is voluntary, referring to the words: “by voluntary compliance.” But none of the citizens believe those words, and the tax collectors themselves are armed and dangerous. If the “voluntary compliance” phrase were the truth, the tax collectors would not need to be armed. This list of disparities between the law books and the reality on the streets is by no means exhaustive.

It is also easy for Christians to side-step persecution and legal problems (Jesus was crucified as an unjust consequence of legal problems) and to avoid hardship if they confine their Christianity to a registered  (3) Church building, presided over by Caesar’s authority in its Board of Directors, having received the embodiment of his authority through the inCORPoration status (CORP is Latin for body) and making sure to secure police permission before undertaking Christian outreach. This was especially true in the former Soviet Union. It is now true in the United States. What’s more, United States Church leaders perform marriages in the Church sanctuary, not by God’s authority, but “by the authority vested in me by the (secular) State of Indiana” to the exclusion of Ecclesiastical authority (see West’s Law Dictionary under the subject “marriage”) and they proceed to direct the newly-weds to sign the state marriage contract, along with their own signature, which, as a matter of legal contract, puts Caesar as the Senior Partner of the union, by a contract that can only be made and put asunder by state authority, and, again, TO THE EXCLUSION OF ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY! On the next Holy day these same Church leaders lecture from the Gospels that say: “What God has joined let no man put asunder,” (Mt. 19:6). This incongruity, to us, is baffling. Jesus said for us to give unto Caesar what belongs to him, not what belongs to God, see Mt. 22:21, and Jesus’ disciples said: “We must obey God rather than men,” (Acts 5:29).

The simple logic behind the doctrine commonly referred to as “separation of Church and State,” properly applied, gives to Caesar what belongs to him, and NOT what belongs to God. We urge parents to give themselves, their marriage, the resulting children and family to God, who authored and created all of the above. No, the secular state did NOT create our children!

For our own marriage we carefully safeguarded God’s authorship and authority by entering into a Christian Covenant of Holy Matrimony instead of a secular marriage contract, which, by the way, homosexual partners receive at their “marriages,” although bearing a different name.

The aforementioned Church leaders also enter into contract with the Government in Washington D.C. whereby they agree to hush at times sensitive to politicians and their processes, tacitly agreeing not to speak God’s words relevant to the political process, in exchange for tax advantages, called the 501-C-3 Agreement. To us these traits are those of unacceptable compromise, tantamount to apostasy. By this hush agreement, they peacefully co-exist with evil, whereas Christians are called to “take no part in evil deeds of darkness, but rather, expose them,” (Eph. 5:11).This we endeavor to do, in love, in the example of early Christians, who were charged to preach the Word of God “in season and out of season” – even at politically sensitive seasons (see 2 Timothy 4:2).

Early Christians were NOT to be conformed to Caesar’s expectations (secular, worldly government) due to their attachment to their Lord and Savior Jesus, according to the following words from Romans 12:2: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world!” Christians live in the example of Jesus who himself was under constant fire from nay-sayers and contradictors for His life and ministry. Consequently, it is easy to find religious persecution in the lives of Christians who are NOT conformed to Caesar’s expectations. A select word of wisdom from Jesus’ teachings at this point would be: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod,” Mark 8:15. (It is without a doubt that this bold warning and denunciation was made at a politically sensitive moment and resulted in more legal problems for Jesus, including the fact that he was seen as a blasphemer and “cultist” by the religious leaders of his day and was crucified for it.)

Christians who rescind their Social Security Number because of its alarming overlap with the description of the Mark of the Beast of the Revelation, will also face IMMEDIATE persecution, and a tangible awareness that it is no longer easy to buy and sell, nor travel, etc., in the U.S. without it. The moment of this realization created a wrenching dilemma for us, as Christians, but we responded as we felt Jesus would have us to, and we never shrank back, regardless of the hardships and grief that followed.

Nevertheless, we worship and fellowship with fellow Believers regardless of agreement – doctrinal, traditional, cultural or otherwise, and regardless of whether we agree on the issue at hand.

We believe it is primarily due to the Christian clergy’s silence at politically sensitive times that the nation has expelled Jehovah God and is now following a War god to conquer its enemies, rushing to shed innocent blood, as in Iraq, among others. Mr. Bush could not wait two months, as requested by Weapons Inspector Specialist Hans Blix and his team, to finish their investigation, searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, which were never found. So, the U.S. deployed its own massive destruction instead, in our opinion, under the auspices of the Deceiver of Nations (Rev. 20:8).

Paragraph No. 26 : We respectfully submit that the analysis of the Commission in this paragraph is defective and inadmissible. We hope, Mr. Minister, that you concur with our view. Quite the contrary to the Commissions assertions, our fears are sane, palpable, understandable and well-grounded.

Paragraph No. 27 : This paragraph, in our view, strikes us as a gross miscarriage of justice. The words from the UNHCR Manual, paragraph 53, apply to our case in a most excellent way. We are persecuted for our religion and the political views, values and worldview that derive from it. Now we find ourselves on the second continent away from our homeland and we are persecuted for having United States passports, being cautioned everywhere that the odds are against us, for being granted political asylum anywhere in the world, no matter how excellent our case, as it is not permitted by George W. Bush, President of the U.S.A. This is a new wave of persecution and discrimination due to our nationality.

Paragraph No. 28 : In this paragraph the Commission deserves our commendation for acknowledging, in its words: “our deeply-rooted religious beliefs.” Yes, indeed, our religious beliefs stem from being connected to God through Jesus who is central in our life – He IS our life, “In Him we live, move, and have our being” as ancient writers have said. Our life belongs to Jesus because he died willingly to release us from the death penalty for our sin. The new life that Jesus received at His resurrection is ours also.

Jesus instructs us to “seek FIRST God’s kingdom and His righteousness, … and … don’t fear man who can only kill the body…” (see Mt. 6:33 and Mt. 10:28).This includes not fearing man’s unjust & unlawful laws more than fearing God and being in a state of disharmony with Him. Thus, there are times when we don’t have the luxury to conform to the expectations of the law. The “Necessity Dictates” defense was laid out by Jesus in the 12th chapter of the book of Matthew for situations where it is necessary to disobey the law, and in such cases the lawbreaker is innocent, Matthew 12:7.

This paragraph further states that we have “extreme views.” Consider with us, however, that the same week that our humanitarian convoy was blocked in Waco, Texas, Serbian soldiers blocked a United Nations’ humanitarian convoy in Bosnia. We remember distinctly, that the world opinion characterized the Serb soldiers as the extremists, not the humanitarian volunteers. If the Commission is of the opposite opinion, they risk suffering an outcry from world opinion when our story is publicized widely, as happened with the incident in Bosnia. From our vantage point we are the Good Samaritans, who help people in need, without prejudice, who overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). It is sad that the families in Waco were all killed, murdered, more precisely, 76 individuals in number, among them 24 children, three days after our humanitarian convoy was blocked, an outreach that had the real potential of defusing the whole crisis, but the families died never having known that help was on its way.

When we arrived at the outer perimeter FBI checkpoint and said our final prayer and gave our final nod, signaling to each other that we were willing to press in with our humanitarian delivery, we were conscious of three possible scenarios: 1) we would succeed in delivering our relief goods, 2) we would be arrested, or 3) we would be shot in the back. We had announced our arrival to the FBI before saying this final prayer, and while we were praying the FBI called in a military helicopter gunship that hovered above us with snipers at the ready sitting in the open bay door. This was clearly intended to terrorize us and was terrorist in nature, but we were not to be intimidated by their terrorism. Confident that probity was on our side, we pressed across the line until we were over-powered and put under arrest by FBI agents.

We refer to this ordeal casually as the “Waco incident,” but in documents submitted to the War Crimes Tribunal we refer to it as the scenario at the Mount Carmel Concentration Camp, because the specific site of the campus was known as “Mount Carmel.” Subsequently, we refer to the final fiery demise as the “Mount Carmel Holocaust.” We also identify the BATF and FBI’s presence at Mount Carmel as death squadrons by simply viewing the video and reading the record. The video, submitted as our Proof Document, is entitled “Waco: The Rules of Engagement” and is found at the following website: http://www.waco93.com/faq.htm. Several agents of the government death squadron were also killed during the initial assault.

After we knew the fact that the Davidian families needed humanitarian help, NOT to have tried to help them, to us would have been sin, by the Christian definition of sin, which is as follows: “To know to do good and not to do it, to him it is sin,” (see James 4:17).

As to the imaginative “Homeschooling connection,” may our prior discussion suffice to render it a moot point.

If, as stated in this paragraph, the Commission faults us for having left house and home the same day the child police tried to have me (Gary) falsely arrested, violating numerous pre-requisites of legal protocol, and, as we predicted correctly that our children would be sought by the police, may we respectfully submit that we have a God-given responsibility to protect our children from the unlawful over-zeal of our persecutors. Our removing ourselves was to avoid further unlawful jeopardy and conflict against ourselves and our family. That day was the infamous 6th of May, 2002.

Paragraph No. 29 : In this final paragraph the Commission affirms the fact that the state demands that the law be obeyed, yet in our presentation we have demonstrated that the U.S. state refuses to obey the law itself. This discrepancy has given rise to the need of people just like us whose life reflects the qualities that the law is designed for and intended to protect and promote: altruism, adhering to the Golden Rule and probity, compassion in the example of Jesus Christ, providing for the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs of our children, with self-control and perseverance in the face of adversity and hardship, willing to “march into Hell for a Heavenly cause,” courageously and tenaciously holding on to deeds of kindness and goodness, “against such there is no law,” Galatians 5:23. Incidentally, the Golden Rule teaches us to “do unto others as you wish for them to do unto you (Mat. 7:12)” … and in another of Jesus’ teachings, he said: “… love your neighbor as yourself (Mat. 22:39).”

Anyone who still doubts the lawlessness of the United States Government needs only to be reminded of the strike against Iraq in April of 2003, the same year and month that we made our exodus from the United States, a war that violated Christianity, and U.S. and International law, and which is included in our formal accusation against the United States Government submitted to the World Court. We hope to translate our accusation, entitled: “War Crimes Compendium of Affidavits – the United States is not a safe zone,” which contains our Case-in-Chief, into the four languages that Gary speaks and to move the Court to provide us with a hearing to present our testimony.

Other instances of the United States violating their own laws and principals would include the policy stated by Secretary of State Condolezza Rice on 30 January 2005 via HCJB short-wave radio from Quito, Ecuador, on the eve of elections in Iraq, as follows: “No matter what the outcome of the elections in Iraq it would not be allowed that they elect a spiritual government.” Whereas the world was led to believe that the United States was interested in democracy in the Middle East, which is unfortunately not their first concern, but rather ascendancy and primacy, as in playing God. In our opinion, this is parallel to the depiction in the following quote:

“I (Lucifer) will ascend to Heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God … ” Isaiah 14:13.

Consider, furthermore, closer to home here in Argentina, how democracy was so easily sacrificed for the U.S. Government’s other interests, in light of the following quote from Time Magazine of 10 June 2002, p.41: “… the U.S. played a central role in the coup in which Chile’s democratically elected Marxist President, Salvador Allende Gossens, died. Chile is still coming to terms with the horrors that followed … activists still call for Henry Kissinger to be prosecuted. U.S. Secretary of State at the time of the coup, he was widely quoted as saying: ‘I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.'” YET THE WORLD STILL CONSIDERS THE U.S. TO BE A BASTION OF DEMOCRACY, TRUTH AND JUSTICE. We believe we have laid that myth to rest with this and other documents and testimony.

We do not need to go back into United States’ history to re-examine the genocide committed against the North American indigenous population to find the roots of the modern and recent imperious, criminal attitudes. We consider the most profound and ominous changes in United States’ modern worldview to have begun with the indiscriminate and barbaric annihilation (with weapons of mass destruction) of the hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 60 years ago. These strikes were more barbarous than what is referred to in the U.S. Declaration of Independence as “merciless and savage,” deeds that were used as a basis for throwing off the political ties of King George of England, and we quote: “He has … endeavored to bring [against us] the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known Rule of Warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” (248 thousand innocent people were indiscriminately murdered in the two strikes on 6 & 9 August 1945, plus their aftermath. This total death toll figure was taken from: “La Fantastique Atome” by Jean-Claude Pasquiez, Casterman 1973, p. 50.) Further elaboration is not necessary.

With that, we rest our Case, confident that we have amply demonstrated that our petition for political asylum exceeds the requirements of the Manual.

Thank you for your patience with our presentation. We apologize for lack of form or format, as we are compiling this at our primitive campsite in the forest without the help of our computer and other resource material.

[The original document of this Appeal was submitted on the 11th of July, 2005, written in long-hand but was not receivable for lack of photocopies. We resubmitted it with copies on 12 September 2005. Almost 4 years later our Appeal was denied without explanation. We were notified of it on 2 June 2009.]

Respectfully submitted,

Gary & Vickie SPAULDING, Bariloche, Argentina – 4 July 2005

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• CONSIDERING:
• [1.] That it is hereby necessary to determine whether the petitioners qualify under the conditions of article 1, section A, paragraph II of the Convention on the Refugees’ Statute, ratified by the Argentina Republic by Law 15,869, passed on 13 September 1961.
• [2.] That, to this end, anyone intending to obtain the benefit of refuge must comply with the following requirements: 1) being outside his/her country of origin; 2) with grounded fear of persecution; 3) for reasons related to race, religion, nationality, belonging to a certain social group or adherence to a certain political view and 4) the result of a verifiable situation in his/her country of origin based on objective facts, to which such fear must be necessarily related.
• [3.] That, to this end, the situation of the country of origin (objective element) will have to be evaluated, as well as the facts invoked by the petitioner within the aforementioned referential framework (subjective element), with the purpose of establishing if there is a “refuge situation” in the case in question.
• [4.] That such evaluation does not mean any judgment of the country of origin by this Committee, and is only meant to frame the petition within a context that will render the story and the alleged fears credible. Regarding this last point, the story and fears will prove reasonable if the version of the facts presented by the petitioner – and any other elements that might be attached to the file –are convincing enough to understand that the stay or return to the country of origin has become unbearable for the reasons mentioned above (cf. Paragraph 42 of the “Manual of Proceedings and Criteria to determine the condition of refugee,” edited by the UNHCR).
• [5.] That the file contains information about the general situation in the United States of America.
• [6.] That given the importance that the subjective element has in the evaluation of refuge requests, it is necessary to take into account what the eligibility agent stated in his report contained in the file.
• [7.] That during Mr. Spaulding’s interview, conducted in Spanish, which he spoke with precision and fluency, he retold the events he considered more relevant of the last ten years. He proved to be a very well educated and religious person, although he did not specify his belonging to any cult in particular even if he defined himself as Christian. He insisted on the fact that he does not know what the accusations against him are, or the reason for what he calls “persecution”, although he anyway insists on relating it to the Waco incidents.
• [8.] That during her interview, the wife narrated the facts in English and was clearly nervous. As time went by she started to re1ax, but she reported that she wanted to stick to the most important facts and not to the whole story. Her statements coincided with her husband’s. Both petitioners consider they are being persecuted and state their fear of being deprived of their children.
• [9.]  That in order to analyze this case it would be necessary to break down every fact on which the petitioners base their request, in the understanding that, apart from the relation that they mean to establish between those facts in their story, they are not related with each other, but they are isolated facts generated as from the petitioners’ exacerbated precautions regarding the legal guardianship of the State over minors in general, especially as regards the education that parents are forced to give them.
• [10.]  That, then, the Waco incidents (1993) originated when the petitioner tried to hand over some food to a religious group surrounded by FBI agents. At the time, when the petitioner was intercepted by the police, he was detained under the charge of interfering with the duties of public officers. This episode seems to be a mere misdemeanor, and it cannot be inferred that it is a persecutory act on the part of the authorities.
• [11.]  That because of this, the petitioner had to face a trial against him. The petitioner cannot state clearly the way this ended, claiming that, after a couple of formalities and presentations, he was never summoned to appear in court again, suggesting that the case might have been shelved or left pending of resolution. Although the petitioner does not state clearly what happened with the case, he could go on leading a normal life.
• [12.]  That regarding the facts that took place during the summer after the Waco incidents, although the petitioner states that the authorities sent the so called “cult investigators”, this led to no inconveniences and the petitioners seem never to have seen their life, safety or freedom threatened.
• [13.]  That regarding the difficulty the Spaulding family had to face as a consequence of the Minority Social Service of the State of Indiana purportedly trying to deprive them of their children’s guardianship, the petitioners cannot determine the reasons for such trouble. The petitioners consider that, due to their Christian convictions and the actions they participated in (such as the Waco incident, for example), the authorities may have considered them somehow too dangerous to let them go on educating their children. It should be noted that the petitioners did not want their children to receive compulsory public education, but preferred to educate their children themselves at home instead, on the basis of personal reasons, tinged with others of a religious, social and cultural nature.
• [14.]  That according to information in possession of this Office, the State of Indiana grants its citizens the possibility of teaching their children at home (home schooling), as long as they comply with certain requirements. In fact, the official website of the Indiana Department of Education (http://www.doe.state.in.us/sservices/hse.htm) states that the law of compulsory attendance requires that all children go to school and be taught in English, either since the beginning of the school year when the child will be 7 (if the child attended a public school) or at age 7 (if the child attended a non-accredited non-public school [including, but not restricted to] a “home school”). The child must attend school till he/she is 18, gets a secondary school degree, or formally graduates from school at age 16 or 17, according to the proceedings stipulated by the IC 20-8.1-3-17(j). Parents who choose to home educate their children are requested to report the enrolment of their home school to the Indiana Department of Education at the request of the Public Instruction Superintendent of the State (IC 20-8.1-3-24(b)).
• [15.]  That the website of the Indiana Association of Home Educators states that although legal problems are infrequent, they may well exist. The website quotes the Indiana Code Ann. Sec. 20.8.1-3-17, which states that a child may attend “any other school which is taught in the English language. “
• 1) The child must be “provided with instruction equivalent to that given in public schools.” Sec: 20-8.1-3-34. The State Board of Education is not given the authority to define “equivalent instruction” nor to approve home schools. Anyway , Sec. 20.8.1-3-17.3 (see above) has removed all subject requirements, leaving home schools with no mandatory subjects.
• 2) The Indiana Appellate Court held that the Indiana compulsory attendance law allows the operation of home schools. State v. Peterman, 32 Ind. App. 665, 70 N.E. 550 (1904). Essentially, the court said a school at home is a private school.
• The court defined a school as “a place where instruction is imparted to the young … We do not think that the number of persons, whether one or many, make a place where instruction is imparted any less or any more a school.” Peterman, 70 NE at 551. The court explained further: “Under a law very similar to ours, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts has held that the object and purpose of a compulsory educational law are that all the children shall be educated, not that they shall be educated in any particular way.” Peterman, at 551.
• The court concluded: “The result to be obtained, and not the means or manner of attaining it, was the goal which the lawmakers were attempting to reach. The law (compulsory attendance) was made for the parent who does not educate his child, and not for the parent who … so places within the reach of the child the opportunity and means of acquiring an education equal to that obtainable in the public schools … ” Peterman, at 552.
• 3) In Mazanec v. North Judson-San Pierre School Corporation, 614 F. Supp. 1152 (N.D. Ind. 1985), (aff’d by 798 F.2d 230), a federal district court recognized that parents have the constitutional right to educate their children in a home environment (at page 1160).
• [16.]  That according to the analysis made, the fact that the petitioners were summoned by the official body of minors’ protection may well have been due to legal problems derived from the home schooling practice, and there seems to be no evidence that it was due to persecution of the Spaulding family by the authorities as a consequence of their religious beliefs or their past actions, such as the Waco incident.
• [17.]  That after their flight from the State of Indiana, the petitioners lived in Michigan and Illinois for over a year without problems. Although they point out that they lived in Chicago without much public exposure, the truth is that there were no difficulties that might objectively lead to the conclusion that their fears were justified. What is more, they left the country legally, without trouble.
• [18.]  That after leaving the United States, the petitioners started long wanderings that took them to Andorra, where they were told that they could not request asylum (which is not true), and from where they were expelled on the basis of police reports that “police records in their country of origin of interference with the authorities in 1993 and of forgery of documents and of a car registration in 1994 are enough to consider that their mere presence in the principality may represent a risk for the security, possessions, people and/or public order of the state.” Then they go to Switzerland, where they are denied asylum. In turn they also try to go to Ireland and the United Kingdom, but they are denied permit to enter in both countries.
• [19.]  That the migration or asylum measures taken by these countries can only be considered decisions of sovereign states according to their rules and there is nothing to suggest that this might be related to any kind of persecution by the American authorities.
• [20.]  That, finally, under the terms of the 1951 Convention on the Refugees’ Statute, the bureaucratic hindrances they had to face to obtain passports for their elder children in Chicago and the passport for their youngest daughter in the American Embassy in Bern, Switzerland, do not seem to qualify as persecution either. In the last case mentioned, in particular, which was unsuccessful because the minor did not get her passport, the petitioner reports that the authorities requested his presence, which he considers was meant to arrest and deport him. It should be noted that passport applications for American minors require both parents’ signatures (such is the requirement to apply for a passport in the Buenos Aires Embassy), and it may well be the case that the summoning was mainly motivated by a bureaucratic requirement and not by a persecutory instance by the American authorities.
• [21.]  That regarding the petitioners’ fears of threat to their own and their children’s life, security or freedom, it must be noted that such fear is not grounded on objective elements nor does it seem reasonable. Regarding this point, paragraph 38 of the Manual of Proceedings and Criteria is worth quoting in order to determine the status of refugee. The Manual states: “The fear, state of mind and subjective condition is qualified as «grounded». This means that the interested person’s status as a refugee is not determined only by his state of mind; that condition has to be based, additionally, on an objective situation. Consequently, the expression «grounded fears» contains a subjective element and an objective element, and both elements have to be taken into account when determining whether there are grounded fears.
• [22.]  That, on the other hand, from the subjective point of view, their reported fear does not correspond with the fact that the family lived a year in Chicago until the petitioner finished the activity he was engaged in (the building of a bed & breakfast) nor with the fact that they appeared before the authorities in Chicago (and later they would do the same in Switzerland) to apply for new passports, or with the fact that they left the country legally without the authorities having prevented it. Although the petitioners add that they managed to leave the country “by miracle” (they allege that their passports were not scanned, by mistake), there is little likelihood that the migration authorities had failed to control all the family members’ passports; it is more likely that they had let them leave the country because nothing prevented them from doing so. The truth is that, whether or not that control was efficient, they risked leaving the country legally via an international port, in a country where, especially after the September 2001 events, controls in its border crossings are very strict.
• [23.]  That, for further documentation, paragraph 41 of the UNHCR Manual of Proceedings and Criteria should be mentioned, which states that in order to analyze the subjective element, it is necessary to take into account the petitioner’s personal and family background, his/her belonging to a certain racial, religious, national, social or political group, and the way in which he/she interprets his/her situation, so as to consider it reasonable fear. Therefore, after analyzing the preceding narration of events, its plausibility cannot be established, nor can it be considered that the fear manifested by the petitioners be of such relevance that it might have led them to leave the country.
• [24.]  That, finally, also regarding the fear, it should be noted that even granting the existence of fear, such fear would not be grounded in the context of the country of origin, according to the information in possession of this Office and which is detailed in Appendix 3.
• [25.]  That regarding the freedom of worship, the report by Special Secretary Mr. Abdelfattah Amor of the visit to the United States of America, COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS, UNITED NATIONS, 55th Session should be remarked, which states that the United States is a vast medley of religions and beliefs (as can be seen in some avenues in Washington, which exhibit an extraordinary succession of worship places of all denominations), which both welcomes different beliefs and also produces them, as a free country open to all religions and creeds.
• [26.]  That according to the analysis made, the existence of grounded fear of persecution does not seem likely in this case under the terms of the 1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocol.
• [27.]  That, on the other hand, after analyzing paragraph 53 of the Manual of Proceedings and Criteria in order to determine the refugee status of the UNHCR, which establishes that “there must be reasons related to race, religion, nationality, belonging to a certain social group or adherence to a certain political view that might threaten a person’ s life or safety so that an instance can be considered persecution,” and considering that these characteristics are not present in the context of the facts narrated by the petitioner, none of the persecution reasons, under the 1951 Convention can therefore be verified.
• [28.]  That, finally, it should be concluded that the petitioners’ deeply rooted religious beliefs have led them to adopt extreme attitudes. Imbued with those extreme views, the petitioner does not recognize the State’s authority to establish its rules and demand that they be enforced. In accordance with that attitude, he assumes a rebellious behavior bordering on illegality: such has been his intervention in the Waco incidents, opposing the instructions established by the security authority; such has been the removal of his minor children from compulsory school instruction trying to exclude the State from its guardianship duty over the rights of minors; such has been the removal of his family from the jurisdiction of the minors’ protection authority, thus starting a clandestine life.
• [29.]  That the petitioner seems to regard as persecution against him, the State’s demand that the law, to which all its inhabitants are subjected, be enforced, and he then claims that he is afraid of being deprived of his children and of losing his freedom, something that, in any case, would be a consequence of his own failure to comply with the regulations imposed by the State. The petitioner’s mistaken view that the State’s right to exert legal mechanisms in order for the laws it passes to be complied with constitutes persecution against him, undermines the reasonable nature of the fear, apart from the fact that it does not qualify under any of the reasons of the Convention that could give rise to international protection.
• [30.] That a Representative of the Regional Office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, who was present during the talks, states that he does not know any other facts that could contribute to the decision making regarding this case.
• [31.] That, therefore, the case does not comply with the requirements enumerated in the first paragraphs of this section.
• [32.] As a consequence of these all these considerations, the COMMITTEE FOR THE ELLEGIBILITY OF REFUGEES, whose members are Dr. Adriana Cristina ALFONSO (at present Chief of the Committee), Dr. Juliana BELLO (representing the Board of Law Matters), Dr Fabián ODDONE (representing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Cult), Dr. Juan I. MONDELLI (representing the United Nations High Commission for Refugees) and Lic. María José MARCOGLIESE, representing the Committee’s Administrative Office, DECIDE: TO DENY the status of REFUGEESto GARY L SPAULDING, his wife VICKIE LYNN and their children L’ABRI LAURENT, JIREH DEVIN, BENI DEO, TALITHA SEDMAYA and CIELA ROSE SPAULDING. BE IT NOTIFIED.