on March 30, 2004, and repeated on May 13 and December 3, 2004 (supra para. 94). In
compliance with these measures, the National Guard carried out “rondines”146 around his
residence between May and December 2004. His family considered this procedure
insufficient, and they informed the First Instance Criminal Court on December 2, 2004, that
“even though National Guard Post No. 28 had been commissioned by this court to execute
the measures of protection, it has not been possible to obtain their permanent presence, 24
hours a day, in the Las Casitas sector of Guanayén, where we live. We consider that this is
the only way in which we can obtain effective protection of our physical integrity and
guarantee the right to life.147 Some months later, on August 2, 2005, Juan José Barrios
testified before the Public Prosecution Service that “a police officer [of the Scientific
Investigation Unit] stopped [him] and told [him] that he was going to kill [him], in the same
way he [had] killed [his] brothers […]; with his hand he made to gesture as if he was going
to [cut his head off]; the same gesture that was made to [his] brothers before killing
them.”148 In this regard, a criminal investigation was launched the day of the complaint and
dismissed one month later on September 7, 2005.149
123. The Court does not have sufficient information to allow it to attribute the deprivation
of life of Luis Alberto Barrios, Oscar José Barrios, Wilmer José Flores Barrios and Juan José
Barrios, and the attempt against the life of Néstor Caudi Barrios, to acts of State agents.
Moreover, in accordance with the Court’s case law, the treaty obligations of guarantee
imposed on States by the Convention do not imply its unlimited responsibility for any act or
deed of an individual, because the States’ obligation to adopt measures of prevention and of
protection of individuals in their relations with each other are conditioned by their
awareness of a situation of real and immediate danger to a specific individual or group of
individuals and to the reasonable possibility of preventing or avoiding that risk. In other
words, even though the legal consequence of an act or omission of an individual may be the
violation of certain rights of another individual, this cannot be automatically attributed to
the State, because the specific circumstances of the case must be considered, together with
the execution of the said obligation of guarantee.150
124. In this case, the State was fully aware of the danger to the said members of the
Barrios family, as a result of the complaints and the measures of protection requested at
the domestic level, as well as the precautionary and provisional measures ordered by the
organs of the inter-American system. As beneficiaries of precautionary measures and
provisional measures ordered by the Commission and by the Court, with the consequent
146
The word “rondines” refers to “rounds” or protection visits to the homes of the beneficiaries carried out by
police officials.
147
Brief of Eloisa Barrios, Beatriz Barrios, Jorge Barrios and Rigoberto Barrios to the Criminal Review Court of
First Instance of the Ninth Criminal Judicial Circuit of Aragua state of December 2, 2004 (file of attachments to the
answering brief, tome VI, attachment 27, folio 7119). In addition, they stated that “[t]he (two) members of the
National Guard have sporadically visited only the home of Elbira Barrios and Eloísa Barrios, […] and this does not
guarantee that the police officials attached to the Guanayén Police State will not threaten us again and, ultimately,
kill another member of the family.”
148
Record of interview with Juan José Barrios by the Twentieth Prosecutor of Aragua state with competence
for the protection of fundamental rights on August 2, 2005 (file of attachments to the answering brief, tome II,
attachment 8, folio 5011). In addition, Juan José Barrios stated that “the measure of protection has not been
implemented for more than a month [and] no National Guard has come near his home.”
149
Cf. Order to open an investigation of the Twentieth Prosecutor of Aragua state of August 2, 2005 (file of
attachments to the answering brief, tome II, attachment 8, folio 5024), and Request to reject the complaint by the
Twentieth Prosecutor of the Public Prosecution Service on September 7, 2005 (file of attachments to the answering
brief, tome II, attachment 8, folios 5033 to 5039).
150
Cf. Case of the Pueblo Bello Massacre, supra note 39, para. 123, and Case of González et al. (“Cotton
Field”), supra note 36, para. 280.
43
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