B. Obligation to investigate 295. The Commission asked the Court to order the State, “to conduct an impartial and thorough investigation within a reasonable time in order to prosecute and punish all those who carried out and masterminded the human rights violations found in [the Merits Report].”429 Meanwhile, the representatives concurred with this request and indicated that the State should be ordered to guarantee “access to justice to the next of kin of the victims of […] Santo Domingo by conducting a serious and effective judicial proceeding designed to investigate, prosecute and punish, proportionately, the perpetrators and masterminds of the bombardment of December 13, 1998, the subsequent machine gun attack on the survivors, the acts of looting and destruction of the homes, and the subsequent stigmatization of the victims and actions aimed at altering the course of the investigation.”430 296. For its part, the State indicated, in general, that article 149 of Law 1448 of 2011 (Victims Act) includes the application of sanctions to those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law. 297. Regarding the obligation to investigate, the Court indicates that no violations were declared in relation to the rights to judicial guarantees and judicial protection (supra para. 175). Despite this, as indicated (supra para. 163 and infra operative paragraph 7), under the general obligation contained in Article 1(1) of the Convention, the State must continue the administrative and judicial investigations and proceedings underway and open any more that are appropriate in order to determine the facts and responsibilities. C. Measures of satisfaction, rehabilitation and restitution, and guarantees of nonrepetition 298. The Commission asked, in general, that the Court order the State “to establish, with the participation of the community in its design and implementation, a collective reparation mechanism that recognizes the impact that the bombardment had on the civilian population of the village of Santo Domingo to remedy the grave and lasting consequences for the community as a whole and that takes into consideration development initiatives on health, housing and education,” as well as “to provide adequate reparation for the human rights violations found in the [Merits Report] for both the pecuniary and the non-pecuniary aspects, including the elucidation and dissemination of 429 The Commission added that it was also ordered “to investigate the connections between State agents and the oil company that was operating in the area where the events occurred.” 430 In addition, the representatives asked that: (a) this “should take into account the unexplored lines of investigation, including the need to investigate the activities of the private companies during operations Relámpago I and Relámpago II, as well as the participation of three presumed United States citizens who took part in the said operations on board the Skymaster aircraft, and the loan and facilitation of resources such as OXY’s office G”; (b) the State should conduct the “investigation into all those involved in the planning and implementation of the joint military operation Relámpago II and identify the responsible line of command, all the perpetrators involved in the air and on land and, with regard to the masterminds, those who took part in the decision to use the cluster bomb launched from the UH1H helicopter on the inhabitants of Santo Domingo on December 13, 1998”; (c) the State must “abstain from using procedural obstacles such as the expiry of time frames, prescription, res judicata, the principle of non bis in idem, amnesty laws or any other mechanism that permit exempting those who took part in the events from responsibility; in particular, those related to the constitutional reform known as the “legal framework for peace”; (d) the Court should order the State “to remove immediately the de facto and de jure procedural obstacles generated during the proceedings before the military criminal justice system, adapting the necessary normative, practical and jurisprudential mechanisms to ensure that all those responsible are investigated, prosecuted and punished proportionately,” and (e) “the State must prohibit members of the Military Forces accused of severe human rights violations from continuing to fail to serve their sentences on military premises.” In addition, the representatives asked that the State be ordered “to take appropriate measures […] with regard to all those responsible for the acts of stigmatization against the inhabitants of Santo Domingo. To this end, the State should forward to the Human Rights Unit of the Prosecutor General’s Office all the active proceedings or those that may be filed in the future for fresh stigmatizations, defamation, insults, threats and harassment and joinder them in a single procedural action in order to unify all the evidence that permits identifying, prosecuting and punishing those responsible.” Lastly, the representatives also indicated that the State must “publicize widely the results of the criminal investigations that truly and effectively include these lines of investigation.” ‐ 85 ‐