validity, or provide any information indicating their possible shortcomings. To the contrary, the Commission emphasized the importance of the steps taken by the State as regards the programs and actions it has been implementing in this area, and both the Commission and the representative expressed their wish that the State continue strengthening the special programs for the protection of journalists at risk and the investigation of crimes committed against them. Since the State has taken certain actions to implement the measure of reparation requested and, taking into consideration that it has expressed its “absolute commitment” to comply with it, the Court does not consider it appropriate to order the requested measure. Nevertheless, the Court finds it extremely important to urge Colombia to comply with the said commitment to continue taking all necessary measures to adopt and strengthen the special programs designed to protect journalists at risk and to investigate the crimes committed against them. D) Compensation 291. Before determining compensation, the Court takes note that the State indicated that, when establishing the amounts corresponding to damage, the Court should “abide by what has really been proved in the proceedings, in keeping with the causal nexus that the Court finds has been effectively demonstrated.” It also asked the Court to “reject all those assertions that seek to substantiate damage and that are based exclusively on the statements of the victims or their representative when, owing to their nature, […] they require special probative support.” D.1) Pecuniary damage 292. In its case law, the Court has developed the concept of pecuniary damages and the assumptions under which it must be compensated. This Court has established that pecuniary damage supposes “the loss of or detriment to the victims’ income, the expenses incurred owing to the facts, and the consequences of a pecuniary nature that have a causal nexus with the facts of the case.”266 D.1.a) Loss of earnings 293. The representative asked the Court to order payment to Mr. Vélez Restrepo for loss of earnings, because “as of October 6, 1997, […] he abandoned his usual professional work until 2004, the date on which he obtained a one-year work contract” and, despite having had several jobs for his own account, “he has been unable to [re-establish] a professional activity with a regular income that would allow him to support his family in similar conditions […] to those they enjoyed in Colombia.” In addition, he explained that it was complicated to calculate the losses and harm to the earnings of Mr. Vélez, owing to the changes in his finances as a result of his exile and the different socio-economic conditions between his life as a professional in Colombia prior to the facts and his situation in the United States as of 1997, “where he has not enjoyed work stability, so that the loss of earnings has persisted over time.” In order to determine this, he forwarded a calculation with an estimate of the earnings Mr. Vélez failed to perceive, but also asked the Court to “establish in equity” the compensation corresponding to the loss of earnings of Mr. Vélez, “without this being less than US$175,000.00, an amount that represents approximately half from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia (annexes to the answering brief, annex 1, merits file, tome I, folios 432 to 454). 266 Cf. Case of Bámaca Velásquez v. Guatemala. Reparations and costs. Judgment of February 22, 2002. Series C No. 91, para. 43, and Case of the Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku v. Ecuador. Merits and reparations, para. 309. 83