2 MARÍA GARCÍA-DOMINGO GONZALO GODÍNEZ-LÓPEZ ARTURO FEDERICO MÉNDEZ-ORTIZ ALFONSO MORALES-JIMÉNEZ II. To request the Government of Guatemala to adopt all necessary effective measures to ensure that the above mentioned persons may continue to reside at or return to their homes in Colotenango, safe in the knowldege that they will not be persecuted or threatened by the civil patrols or Voluntary Civil Defense Committees, or by military units or other agents of the State. Furthermore, that it take the necessary measures to guarantee to Attorney Patricia Ispanel-Medimilla the right to freely exercise her profession. III. To request the Government of Guatemala to enforce the arrest warrants issued against the remaining patrolmen charged as suspects in the case before the Second Trial Court of Huehuetenango involving the criminal acts committed on August 3, 1993 in Colotenango. IV. To request the Court to convene a public hearing as early as possible, to enable the Commission to describe in detail the vulnerability of the witnesses and family members of the victims, as well as the human rights defense attorneys in Colotenango, Huehuetenango. This hearing will also provide the Government of Guatemala with the opportunity to inform the Court regarding the concrete measures it has taken to solve the crimes charged, to punish those responsible and to prevent the recurrence of these threats and attacks against the witnesses, the family members of the victims and the human rights defense attorneys in the case. V. To request the authorities of the Guatemalan Government to issue a public statement to be broadcast by the principal media outlets of the country, recognizing, first, the legitimacy of civil organizations such as CONAVIGUA, CUC and CONDEG (National Coordinator of Displaced Persons of Guatemala), whose members have suffered, and continue to suffer, persecution because of their opposition to the abuses committed by state organizations such as the so-called Defense Patrols. The statement should furthermore emphasize that participation in the Comités Voluntarios de Defensa Civil "PACs" (Voluntary Civil Defense Committees) or similar groups is strictly voluntary; consequently, nobody can be forced to take part in them. That those rights and guarantees are enshrined in the American Convention on Human Rights, as well as in the Constitution of the Republic of Guatemala, whose Article 34 reads as follows: The right of freedom of association is hereby recognized. No person shall be compelled to join or form part of self-defense or other types of groups or associations. VI. To request the Government of Guatemala to report to the Commission and to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the measures adopted pursuant to the provisional measures to be ordered by that Court. 3. The Commission bases its request for provisional measures on the following: 2. The witnesses to a violent attack carried out on August 3, 1993 by civil patrols against unarmed persons who were participating in a demonstration for human rights in the city of Colotenango, Department of Huehuetenango, are in grave, imminent danger. The parents of two of the witnesses to the case have been murdered, while other witnesses have been seriously injured and subjected to accusations and arbitrary detention; others still have received death threats. At least one of the witnesses has been forced to abandon his home and move to another region of Guatemala. Legal actions have been instituted against the civil associations that support them, in order to intimidate those groups. All of these abuses appear to be aimed at silencing the persons who, in the course of the public demonstration of August 3, 1993, witnessed the murder of human rights advocate JUAN CHANAY-PABLO and the attacks which injured MIGUEL MORALES-MENDOZA and JULIA GABRIEL-SIMÓN. The denunciations indicate that the danger faced by these witnesses and their relatives is posed by members of the armed civil patrols which go under the name of Voluntary Civil Defense Committees. These are armed groups which act under the control and responsibility of the Army of Guatemala.