ORDER OF THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS OF MARCH 6, 2003 PROVISIONAL MEASURES REQUESTED BY THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE MATTER OF THE REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA THE CASE OF THE COMMUNITIES OF THE JIGUAMIANDÓ AND THE CURBARADÓ HAVING SEEN: 1. The communication of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Commission” or “the Inter-American Commission”) of March 5, 2003, in which it submitted to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (hereinafter “the Court” or “the Inter-American Court”), in accordance with Article 63(2) de the American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Convention” or “the American Convention”), a request for the adoption of provisional measures for the members of the communities of African descent comprising the Community Council of the Jiguamiandó and the families of the Curbaradó (hereinafter “the members of the Communities”), in the municipality of Carmen del Darién, Department of Chocó, in the Republic of Colombia (hereinafter “the State” or “Colombia”), in order to protect their lives and safety and their permanence in the territory to which they had been given collective title, in relation to an application submitted to the Commission by the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission (Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz). 2. The alleged death threats, property destruction, looting, illegal detention, harassment, assassinations and disappearances against the members of the Communities indicated in the Commission's communication (supra first having seen paragraph). Other facts described by the Commission in its request for provisional measures are summarized as follows: a) The Community Council of the Jiguamiandó and the families of the Curbaradó are composed of a total of 2,125 persons (515 families) of African descent, an their territory, to which they have received collective title covers 54,973 hectares and 25,000 hectares respectively, in the municipality of Carmen del Darién, Department of Chocó. The 2,125 members of the Communities, for whom the adoption of provisional measures is requested, are identifiable groups of individuals who comprise the so-called “Minor Community Councils”, and have been recognized by the State. In addition, the State has recognized these communities’ collective ownership of their land, their self-governing mechanisms, and their identity as a civilian population distinct from the participants in the internal armed conflict, with regard to which they have assumed a pacific attitude of non-participation; b) The collective title to the land belonging to this group of individuals was legalized by the State on May 21, 2001, in Act No. 70 of 1993. This Act  Judges Máximo Pacheco Gómez and Carlos Vicente de Roux Rengifo advised the Court that, due to circumstances beyond their control, they were unable to take part in the deliberation and signature of this order.