- 10d) The fundamental right to a decent life 32. I do not see how to avoid considering the right to life, as the Inter-American Court has in this case, to my regret. In my opinion, the hypothesis and the constant references in considering paragraphs 130 to 132 of this judgment are entirely unsatisfactory. In its acclaimed judgment on merits in the “Street Children” case (Villagrán Morales et al. v. Guatemala, of November 29, 1999, paragraph 144), which already belongs to the history of the international protection of human rights in Latin America, this same Court stated that: "The right to life is a fundamental human right, and the exercise of this right is essential for the exercise of all other human rights. If it is not respected, all rights lack meaning. Owing to the fundamental nature of the right to life, restrictive approaches to it are inadmissible. In essence, the fundamental right to life includes not only the right of every human being not to be deprived of his life arbitrarily, but also the right that he will not be prevented from having access to the conditions that guarantee a dignified existence. States have the obligation to guarantee the creation of the conditions required in order that violations of this basic right do not occur and, in particular, the duty to prevent its agents from violating it" 33. The State has not complied with this obligation in the instant case. The right to life, in the sense defended by the Court five years ago, was violated in this case, to the detriment of the sisters, Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, who are still disappeared. I consider that this is what the Court should have established in this judgment. I cannot see how it can be maintained that two children who disappeared in an armed conflict have had their right to a decent life preserved. Nor do I see how it is possible to fail to rule in this regard, as the Court failed to do in this judgment. Moreover, I do not see how the two children who are still disappeared have been able to develop an authentic life project. The two disappeared sisters are innocent and silent, but not forgotten, victims of the age-old violence of man against man. 34. What is the reason for armed conflicts? There is no reason. They lead to nothing; they are a desperate race towards nothing. All combatants become pathetic objects of the conflict. They no longer think; they just kill, abduct children (ending their innocence and identity), and become engines of destruction. They are unable to think, because they have entered the vacuum of nothingness. They have brutalized themselves, because killing and destroying is their profession; for nothing. Absolutely nothing. Already in the eighth century A.D., Homer, in the Iliad, affirmed with insuperable force and strength of expression, with penetrating words that should be read attentively by the numerous unscrupulous and irresponsible apologists of the use of force nowadays: "War - I know it well, and the butchery of men. Well I know, shift to the left, shift to the right my tough tanned shield. That's what the real drill, defensive fighting means to me. I know it all, (...) I know how to stand and fight to the finish, twist and lunge in the War-god's deadly dance. (...) Ah for a young man all looks fine and noble if he goes down in war, hacked to pieces under a slashing bronze blade he lies there dead... but whatever death lays bare, all wounds are marks of glory. When an old man's killed and the dogs go at the gray head and the gray beard (...) - that is the cruelest sight in all our wretched lives!"26 26 Homer, The Iliad, N.Y./London, Penguin Books, 1991 [re-ed.], pp. 222 and 543-544, verses 275-278,