26. In implementing the Chiapas Plan, paramilitary groups – linked to the structures of local and state power – were responsible for extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, attacks on personal integrity and forced displacements.32 Additionally, both United Nations agencies and international organizations, reported on the impunity existing for human rights violations committed by those groups. 33 One of the paramilitary groups, which emerged in this context, was Paz y Justicia, specifically in the Ch’ol region of northern Chiapas, where the municipality of Sabanilla is located. As was noted above by the Commission, this organization was “the main one accused as the instrument of the attacks on leaders and organizations that call for indigenous autonomy and defend their ownership of the land they occupy.” 34 The perpetration of executions, disappearances, blocking of several communities and roads, burning of houses and forced displacement of many families and whole communities has been attributed to the group. 35 The human rights violations committed by Paz y Justicia were mainly targeted at members of the PRD and pro-indigenous rights movements.36 27. Several civil society organizations have reported the many pieces of evidence linking Paz y Justicia to the local, state and federal authorities.37 This includes military training, provision of weapons, vehicles and uniforms, facilitating the transportation of weapons through military checkpoints, detention of opponents and failure to investigate criminal activities and punish those responsible. After asserting that there existed a “pattern of complicity” of the state in the violence in Chiapas, HRW wrote the following: […] the government has shown through action and inaction that it is more than just permissive of the violent actions of Peace and Justice. Human Rights Watch/Americas must conclude that authorities actively acquiesce to the abuses committed by armed civilians […]. Authorities frequently know about abuses but fail to act to prevent or punish them. Further, when officials arbitrarily detain opponents of Peace and Justice or fail to investigate denunciations of crimes committed by the group, they lend the perpetrators of rural violence the legitimacy of government institutions.38 28. The petitioner, who allegedly had access to informants within Paz y Justicia, claims that both town halls (including Sabanilla’s), and the governor of Chiapas, the Attorney General and the Mexican Army actively collaborated with said organization in its paramilitary activity.39 29. The Commission itself recognised the paramilitary nature of Paz y Justicia in its 1998 Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Mexico.40 Similarly, while no reference is made to any group in particular, the special UN proceedings were also emphatic in asserting the existence of paramilitary groups in the indigenousinhabited areas of Chiapas, after ascertaining that they were “linked to structures of local and state power and that they intervened violently in political and social conflicts.”41 IACHR. Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Mexico 1998, par. 544; UN. Diagnosis of the Human Rights Situation in Mexico, pgs. 155 – 157; ONU. Rodolfo Stavenhagen Report, par. 42; UN. Nigel S. Rodley Report, par. 10; Amnesty International. Mexico. Las desapariciones: un agujero negro en la protección de los derechos humanos [‘Disappearances: a black hole in human rights protection’]. May 7, 1998 (“AI. Disappearances”), pgs. 20-21. 33 UN. Diagnosis of the Human Rights Situation in Mexico, pg. 159; ONU. Rodolfo Stavenhagen Report, par. 60; UN. Nigel S. Rodley Report, pars. 23 and 37; AI. Disappearances; HRW. Implausible Deniability, pgs. 89-95; Amnesty Internacional. Mexico: under the shadow of impunity. March 9, 1999, pgs. 15-17. 34 IACHR. Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Mexico 1998, par. 556. 35 IACHR. Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Mexico 1998, pars. 557-560; HRW. Implausible Deniability, pgs. 35, 43-44. 36 IACHR. Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Mexico 1998, pars. 557-560; HRW. Implausible Deniability, pgs. 35, 43-44. 37 HRW. Implausible Deniability, pg. 21; AI. Disappearances, pg. 20. 38 HRW. Implausible Deniability, pg. 46. 39 Centro de Derechos Humanos “Fray Bartolomé de las Casas”. La paramilitarización en la Zona Norte de Chiapas [‘The paramilitarization of northern Chiapas’]. El desarrollo de Paz y Justicia, de acuerdo a Paz y Justicia [The development of Paz y Justicia, according to Paz y Justicia’]. Chiapas, July 16, 2004, pgs. 10-13. 40 CHR. Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Mexico 1998, par. 556. 41 UN. Rodolfo Stavenhagen Report, par. 42. See also: UN. Asma Jahangir Report, par. 35; UN. Diagnosis of the Human Rights Situation in Mexico, pg. 156. 32 7