46
175. The Court observes that the State has provided information on the initiatives to train
the members of the Armed Forces on human rights and on international humanitarian
law.221 Moreover, the Court has already ordered human rights training for military forces
in another case.222 Therefore, the Court considers that it is not necessary here to order
the measure requested. The Court notes that in this case the domestic judicial bodies
have determined what occurred and have convicted the persons responsible. Moreover,
the Court has declared human rights violations for the failure to adopt actions to
apprehend the persons that the State has reported as fugitives from justice. However, it
notes that the measures requested by the Commission and the representative for
institutional strengthening are in general terms, without any apparent link to the capability
of the State to take action in relation to the implementation of arrest warrants. Therefore,
it does not find that the violations of certain human rights are related to the requested
measures. The Court, therefore, considers that it is not appropriate to order measures on
institutional strengthening, as requested by the Commission and the representative.
E.
Compensation223
176. The Commission claimed that the victims should be repaired “integrally,” including
a “fair compensation.” The representative requested, in general terms, that the victims
“be repaired integrally […] through reparations for lost wages, consequential damages
and pain and suffering,” for which it provided a documentary annex in which it presented
a monetary calculation for those items.224 The State noted that pecuniary damages can
only be compensated with the necessary proof, excluding simply eventual damages. The
Court will now examine the pertinent requests and arguments.
E.1. Pecuniary damages
function to inform and offers different measures of protection according to the level of risk. The State also
reported that the PPS, through the Internal Armed Conflict of the Office of the Prosecutor of the Section on
Human Rights had adopted a series of measures that would meet the requested measure, such as the
statements given by video conference or Gessel camera (in some cases withholding data of personal
identification or covering the face to avoid direct contact with the accused and expose them physically to
abuse) or to request the Department of Security of the PPS to assign security personnel and vehicles for the
prosecutors at risk, among others (evidence file, annexes 10 and 11 to the answering brief, fs. 5472 to 5509).
221
Cf. Pensum of Studies on Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law and the Use of Force and Firearms,
in the Military Educational System of the Guatemalan Army (evidence file, annex 8 to the answering brief, fs.
5449 to 5461) and Governmental Agreement 130-2016. Internal Organic Rules of the Ministry of National
Defense (evidence file, annex 9 to the answering brief, fs. 5463 to 5471).
222
Case of the Members of the Village of Chichupac and neighboring communities of the Municipality of Rabinal
v. Guatemala, supra, para. 313.
223
It is relevant that the Commission pointed out that those who acted as petitioners before it informed that,
on October 4, 1996, they filed a civil suit for damages, requesting that the “accused” and the State be ordered
to pay an amount of money. The representative claimed that the civil suit was stalled. While the Court has
some information on the status of the suit, it is incomplete and, especially, does not indicate how it concluded
nor what has occurred since October 24, 2002 when the legal advisors of the victims “visited [the Constitutional
Court] to ask whether the petition, related to ‘a matter of constitutionality’ had been resolved.” This, according
to information provided to the Inter-American Commission by the petitioners (cf. Communication of the
petitioners of October 29, 2002, addressed to the Commission (evidence file, proceedings before the
Commission, fs. 2371 to 2385)). The information is not sufficient for the Court to examine the civil suit or take
it into account in determining reparations.
224
Cf. Evidence file, annex 5 of the brief with pleadings and motions, fs. 5355 to 5367. The representative,
in that brief, expressed the amounts in Guatemalan Quetzals. The Court, in calculating its equivalence in
United States dollars, used the exchange rate on the Web site of the Bank of Guatemala:
http://www.banguat.gob.gt/cambio/. It used the exchange rate of March 31, 2017 (1 USD = 7.47444 GTQ),
when the brief with pleadings and motions was presented (supra para. 6).