71
(d)
As indicated above and as will be examined below, in the instant case,
there was a de facto impossibility of filing recourses in favor of Agustín
Goiburú Giménez, Carlos José Mancuello Bareiro and the brothers
Benjamín and Rodolfo Ramírez Villalba at the time of their detention
and disappearance (supra para. 61(4)). In other cases, the Court has
considered this absence of effective recourses to be a source of
additional suffering and anguish for the victims and their next of kin.78
Following the fall of the dictatorship and in the absence of an official
investigation, some of the next of kin filed the respective complaints.
The delay in the investigations, which were also incomplete and
ineffective to punish those responsible for the facts, has exacerbated
the next of kin’s feeling of powerlessness (infra paras. 111 to 133);
and
(e)
Furthermore, since the four abovementioned victims are still
disappeared, the next of kin have not been able to honor their loved
ones appropriately. In this regard, the Court recalls that the continued
deprivation of the truth concerning the fate of a disappeared person
constitutes a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment for the
close family.79
102. Regarding the nephews and nieces of the Ramírez Villalba brothers, children
of Julio Darío Ramírez Villalba; namely, Mirtha Hayde Ramírez de Morinigo, Ana
María Ramírez de Mellone, Julio César Ramírez Vásquez, Rubén Darío Ramírez
Vásquez and Héctor Daniel Ramírez Vásquez (supra paras. 25 and 31), the Court
considers that there is insufficient evidence in the file to consider them victims of the
violation of Article 5 of the Convention.
103. The facts of this case allow the Court to conclude that the violation of the
personal integrity of the victims’ next of kin resulting from the forced disappearances
has been increased owing to the situations and circumstances examined above, that
were experienced by some of them, before, during and after the disappearances.
Many of these situations and their effects, which form an integral part of the complex
phenomenon of forced disappearance, subsist while some of the factors that have
been verified persist. The next of kin suffer continuing physical and psychological
effects caused by the said facts, which have also had an impact on their social and
labor relations and altered their family dynamics. These continuing situations are
eloquently revealed by the words of some of the next of kin of the victims who gave
testimony in the proceedings before the Court:
Rogelio Agustín Goiburú Benítez:
I have been missing [my father] and I have been looking for him and needing him for 29
years, 3 months and 13 days. […] Words cannot describe the profound anguish,
powerlessness, anger and infinite sadness that I feel because I do not know where my
78
Cf. Case of the Ituango Massacres, supra note 1, para. 385; Case of the Pueblo Bello Massacre,
supra note 5, para. 158, and Case of the “Mapiripán Massacre”, supra note 2, para. 145.
79
Cf. Case of the 19 Tradesmen, supra note 60, para. 267; Case of Trujillo Oroza. Reparations (Art.
63(1) American Convention on Human Rights). Judgment of February 27, 2002. Series C No. 92, para.
114, and Case of Bámaca Velásquez. Judgment of November 25, 2000. Series C No. 70, paras. 160 and
165.
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents