21. The expectation of large financial returns on the part of the power elite involved in these transactions has cut off access to effective judicial protection. The Community is constantly being harassed by the authorities, making it difficult or materially impossible to gain access to and exhaust internal remedies or collect evidence. Bowing to pressure, lawyers refuse to defend the Community, and such domestic actions as have been filed have proved to be ineffective, resulting in a continual violation of the rights of the Community to peaceably enjoy the lands given to it by the State itself. The climate of harassment, coupled with the fact that lawyers will not represent them for fear of reprisals, the disappearance of dossiers5 and the persecution of Community leaders are all substantiated in case 12387 (Alfredo López v. Republic of Honduras), which the Commission brought to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (hereinafter the "Inter-American Court" or the "Court"). The Community tried many times to obtain supporting documentation but the search for such evidence was fruitless, because the Municipality of Tela and the INA refused to turn it over. All this, added to the lack of financial resources, places the Community in a situation of inequality and legal defenselessness. 22. Based on the above, the petitioner asks for a ruling that prior exhaustion of domestic remedies has been complied with and that July 8, 2003, the date on which the INA made known the final court decision in the case of IDETRISA, serve as the date from which to count the six-month period prescribed by the Convention. It would be pointless, the petitioner adds, to lodge an administrative action because the defendants were acquitted in the criminal courts, thereby leaving the plaintiffs in a situation of total legal defenselessness, inasmuch as not even lawyers are willing to represent them. 23. This defenselessness is aggravated by the poverty of the Community's inhabitants. The Commission is asked to pay special attention to this factor, which detracts from their ability to defend themselves. As documentary evidence, the petitioner submits the complaints that were filed with the authorities since the Community began to have problems with their lands in Triunfo de la Cruz. 24. The petitioner ends by saying that the Community is uneasy about the future, because it continues to receive threats, and one of the witnesses who was to attend the hearing held by the IACHR had his house set on fire. In deciding on the admissibility of the petition, the Commission should take account of the particular characteristics of this case, inasmuch as internal remedies are not accessible. This should open the way to appeal to the IACHR. There is, the petitioner argues, a continual and obvious violation of human rights in this case, which should render the requirement on exhaustion of domestic remedies inapplicable. In addition, in hearing before the Commission, the petitioner argued that the trend in international tribunals with regard to exhaustion of domestic remedies, reflected in the case law of the European Court of Human rights, is to interpret these cases with flexibility and in the light of the political and legal conditions prevailing in each country. B. The State 25. On March 30, 2004, the State filed comments on the petition, stating that in the mid1900s the alleged victim reported its community village land in the Municipality of Tela. The National Agrarian Institute, in 1979, issued to the Community of Triunfo de la Cruz a deed guaranteeing occupancy of 126.40 hectares, thereby recognizing the possession the Community had exercised up to that time. 26. In November 1993, moreover, the INA gave the Community a definitive deed of ownership over an area of 380.52 hectares and in September 2001 added a deed for 253.48 hectares, thus enlarging its territory. The territory in question and the deeds issued to the Garífuna Community of Triunfo de la Cruz are private in terms of their legal nature and are included within the urban radius of the Municipality of Tela. 5 It is explained, for instance, that in response to a request made to the INA, the Garífuna community of San Juan de Tela was issued a final deed of ownership of a tract of land measuring 328 hectares, which deed is to be found in dossier 27660 that has disappeared from COHDEFOR, the organization for protected areas of Tela and the Municipality of Tela. This was reported to the Ministry of Justice and remains unresolved. 4