included the lack of a definition of the crime of forced disappearance in Bolivian criminal law, the exclusive attention to the civil suit against García Meza et al to the detriment of other cases8, and the fact that the National Commission for Investigation of Forced Disappearances was dissolved before it had completed its work.9 The petitioner indicated as additional factors that made difficult the depletion of the internal resources the fact that the penal process took place in the city of La Paz, in the Third Circuit Criminal Court of Instruction but the relatives of Renato Ticona Estrada did not live in the above mentioned city. They informed that the parents of the presumed victim, lived until 1983 in the rural area of the department of Oruro and then in the department of Cochabamba. It is indicated that without the existence of the National Commission of Investigation of Forced Missing persons, it was impossible for the relatives of Renato Ticona to continue regularly the penal process for reasons of distance and lack of economic resources to settle the expenses of a lawyer who sponsors the cause. The petitioner therefore alleges that the situation of poverty of the family Ticona was another factor that affected in the fact that they could not exhaust the resources of the internal jurisdiction. 25. Finally, with respect to the third exception contained in Article 46(2)(c), the petitioner claimed that neither the Ministerio Público nor the Fiscalía [Office of Public Prosecutor] complied with the obligation to ensure prompt and speedy proceedings and allowed the case to be closed in 1986, when they had an obligation to continue pursuing criminal legal action by virtue of their office. With regard to the observations of the State related to reactivation of the case and the fact that it is still active, the petitioner responds that in making this argument, the State is only taking responsibility for judicial action initiated in 2005, and is ignoring the inactivity of criminal proceedings for a period of time exceeding a reasonable period. In addition, the petitioner argues that the current proceedings taking place in the Bolivian courts are again experiencing delays. On the basis of these considerations, the petitioner alleges an unwarranted delay, since in the 22 years since the acts occurred, the criminal proceedings, which were opened with the preliminary investigation on June 4, 1983 and were closed in 1986, did not even complete the pretrial stage involving investigation and taking of evidence. B. Position of the State 26. In its response, the State requested that the petition be declared inadmissible on the grounds of failure to exhaust domestic remedies. 27. The State contends that on October 28, 1982, the Bolivian government issued Supreme Decree No. 19,441, in which it established the National Commission for Investigation of Forced Disappearances, in addition to subsequent supplementary decrees that reflected the State’s political will to take action against the crimes committed during authoritarian regimes. The State describes the judicial proceedings from 1983 to 1985 in terms similar to those of the petitioner. 8 The petitioner emphasized that the exclusive attention to the trial of responsibilities against García Meza went to the detriment of other cases that did not receive the attention owed by the judicial authorities and of the Public Prosecutor, and especially those in which there was a call for an investigation for forced disappearance of persons. The petitioner pointed out that in the same sentence that condemned García Meza and to his principal collaborators the following was mentioned tangentially: In accordance to the report handle of folders 20 to 23, of the body Nº 3 of the summary file, there is evidence of the capture of many persons and their disappearance, without any explanation given. The partial list of the missing persons, crime of lesa humanity which goes against the human rights, is the following: Juan de Dios Aramayo Vallejos, detained in October, 1980 in The Quiaca and moved to the Regiment Chichas of Tupiza; Julio César Delgado Echenique, militant of the MIR, detained on October 10, 1980, in La Paz; Gregorio Escalera Mendoza, Elías Rafael Flower, Carlos Gutiérrez Gutiérrez, Ernesto Laime Choque, José Luis Martínez Machicado, Raquel Pacheco Condori of Vargas, Esther Tita Manzano Coronado, Renato Enrique Ticona Estrada and others. The petitioner denounced that in spite of this statement in the sentence, non of the persons condemned by the Supreme Court including Garcia Meza were charged as responsible for the forced disappearance of persons. 9 As for the fate of the Commission, the petitioner cited the following extract: “President Siles Suazo established the National Commission for Investigation of Forced Disappearances on October 28, 1982 ... for the purpose of investigating and clarifying the status of disappeared persons and of determining the responsibility of the perpetrators. It was a limited mandate … which lasted from 1982 to 1984, and a final report was not issued, because it was dissolved before its investigation was completed (…). [I]t was the first Truth Commission in Latin America … It received reports of 155 disappearances which took place between 1967 and 1982. Although in some cases the remains of some of the disappeared persons were discovered, the cases were never conclusively investigated. Andean Committee of Jurists, at http://www.cajpe.org.pe/RIJ/cverdad/bo.htm 5