44
competent institutions, must exhaust the lines of investigations with respect to the
execution of Mr. Escué Zapata (supra para. 63 and 109) in order to establish the truth of
the facts. The State must ensure that the victim’s relatives have full access and capacity to
act in all the stages and instances of said investigations and proceedings, in accordance with
the domestic law and the rules of the American Convention. The results of such proceedings
must be disclosed to the public by the State, so that the Colombian society and the Paez
Indigenous Community in particular, can learn what really happened in the present case.
b)
Communal development fund in memory of Germán Escué Zapata
167. The Commission requested the Court to order, as a satisfaction measure, “the
designation of a street, a park or school of Jambaló Community after Germán Escué
Zapata." Moreover, the representatives of the victim and his relatives suggested that "a
monument is a way of reparation for the relatives of Germán Escué [Zapata] and the
members of the Community to which he belonged, inasmuch as it sends a message to the
society suggesting a disapproval of the facts and it also implies the recovery of the memory
of an indigenous leader to praise with nostalgia, as a victim of human rights violations.”
The State undertook to “place a slab in the place to be determined, with the consent of the
victim's relatives."
168. The Court positively values the State’s will to place a slab in memory of the facts and
the victim; notwithstanding, it suggests that the homage to the memory of Mr. Escué
Zapata must be done through beneficial works for the benefit of the Community in which he
exercised a kind of leadership. To that end, the Court considers the State must allocate,
within a period of one year as from the service of notice of this Judgment, the amount of
US$ 40,000.00 (forty thousand United States dollars) to a fund named after Germán Escué
Zapata, so that the Community can invest it in collective interests' service or works for its
own benefit, in accordance with their consultations, decisions, usages, customs and
traditions, independently of the public works put aside in the national budget for that
region.
c)
Measures to guarantee the higher education of Myriam Zapata Escué
169. The representatives highlighted the negative effects that the facts of the present
case caused to the victim's daughter, who, with the death of his father, "lost many
opportunities that could have had in her life." Considering the above, they requested a
scholarship for higher studies as “reparation for the life project and a restitution of what
Myriam could have.” The State confirmed its will to comply with the granting of an
university scholarship for the victim’s daughter “in a well-known academic center chosen by
common consent between the victim and the State.”
170. The Court acknowledges the suffering of the victim’s daughter and the difficulties
that she has to overcome along her life in order to finish her primary and secondary studies;
difficulties that are still evident in the stage where she shows her will and desire to study an
university career.139 Therefore and considering the parties’ petitions, the State must grant
to Myriam Zapata Escué a scholarship for university studies in a Colombian public university
chosen by common consent between her and the State. The scholarship must cover all the
expenses until the completion of the course of studies, the academic material as well as the
lodging and subsistence. The State must, also, bear the expenses of the transportation from
139
Cf. Statement rendered by Myriam Zapata Escué in the public hearing held before the Court on January 29
and 30, 2007.
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