series of considerations on supposed links between two matters pending before the IACHR, identified as petitions 12.050 (La Granja, Ituango) and 12.266 (El Aro, Ituango). 30. It should now be clarified that the petition submitted to the IACHR on March 3, 2000, on the events that occurred from October 22, to November 6, 1997, in the district of El Aro (petition 12.266), does not reproduce the claims set forth in the petition submitted to the IACHR on July 14, 1998, in relation to events that occurred on June 11, 1996, in the district of La Granja (Case 12.050), which is still pending before the Commission in the merits phase, 9 as it is not possible to detect any identity between the facts alleged or victims affected in the two cases. In view of the foregoing, the requirements established in Articles 46(1)(c) and 47(d) of the American Convention are considered to have been met. 3. Characterization of the facts alleged 31. In its note of October 2, 2001, the State asked the Commission to clarify whether the arguments submitted by the petitioners on August 24, 2001, on the alleged violation of Article 21 of the American Convention constituted a supplemental amendment to its claim, since this argument had not been included in the original petition. In addition, the State asked the Commission to determine the “relevance, timeliness, and appropriateness” of this supplemental amendment to the original claim. 32. In effect, in its communication of August 24, 2001, the petitioners argued that the State had violated the right to property enshrined in Article 21 of the American Convention. 10 The Commission also notes that in its original complaint of March 3, 2000, the petitioners had already alleged that during the incursion in El Aro, approximately 40 houses in the urban area were set ablaze, and that a number of head of cattle owned by the inhabitants of the district had been stolen. 33. In this connection, the rules that establish the requirements for a petition to be admitted by the Commission--Article 46(1) of the American Convention and Article 32 of the Regulations in place at the time the complaint was submitted--do not require that one immediately specify the articles considered violated in the facts alleged. As has recently been established by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, insofar as the petitioners set forth, in the complaint, the facts on which its arguments on violations of the Convention are based, and these are relevant to make a legal determination, there is no obligation to invoke specific provisions of the Convention in the initial petition, nor impediments to making legal arguments in later briefs, based on the same facts. In summary, [t]he Court considers that the adequate interpretation is that when there are additional arguments of law, on the same essential facts as those invoked in the petitioners’ original complaint, that argument cannot be dismissed for failure to invoke a specific article of the Convention. 11 Accordingly, the considerations on the alleged violation of Article 21 of the Convention cannot be considered an amendment to the petitioners’ claim, and should be considered together with the original petition. 34. The Commission considers that the petitioners’ arguments with respect to the alleged violation of the rights to life, humane treatment, and personal liberty of Arnulfo Sánchez, José Darío Martínez, Olcris Fail Díaz, Wilmar Restrepo (a minor), Omar Ortiz, Fabio Antonio Zulueta, Otoniel de Jesús Tejada Tejada, Omar Iván Gutiérrez, Guillermo Andrés Mendoza, Nelson Palacio Cárdenas, Luis Modesto Múnera, Marco Aurelio Areiza, Rosa Barrera, Dora Luz Areiza, and Alberto Correa and the rights to protection of the family and property, tend to establish 9 Case 12.050 was declared admissible by the IACHR on October 2, 2000, in Report 57/00, Annual Report of the IACHR 2000. 10 Specifically, the argument indicates that “it has been said in the presentation of the facts that the paramilitary group set fire to and destroyed the dwellings of the inhabitants of the district and appropriated at least 1,200 head of cattle ... the right to property, which is guaranteed in the American Convention, was violated by the setting afire and destruction of the dwellings and by the theft of the cattle.” Communication from petitioners, August 24, 2001. 11 I/A Court H.R., Hilaire Case, Judgment of September 1, 2001, para. 42. 6