iv. By omission: owing to the violation of Articles 8 and 25 of the Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) thereof, as well as of the obligation to guarantee Article 4 of the Convention, to the detriment of Carlos Horacio Urán Rojas, “because the State has been unable to establish the circumstances in which he died” due to “the errors committed in processing the scene of the events and the unjustified delay in the investigations.” It clarified that “the acknowledgement does not imply that it accepts that either the wrongful act of forced disappearance of persons or an extrajudicial execution have been perpetrated against this victim.” 22. The State clarified that the acknowledgements concerning the obligations to investigate and to punish (including their relationship to the obligations established in the Inter-American Convention against Torture and the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance), as well as the violation of freedom of conscience and religion, “are made by omission, because [it did] not consider that the violation occurred owing to deliberate acts of State agents.” It also indicated that it did “not agree that these acts occurred in the context of supposed patterns or practices of human rights violations.” It stressed that its partial acknowledgement of responsibility did “not imply the admission of circumstances that have been presented […] as ‘Context,’ or the other alleged facts and violations that continue in dispute”; furthermore, “it should not be understood as a waiver of its right […] to contest the extent of the harm caused to the victims and the measures of reparation.” B. Observations of the representatives and of the Commission 23. The representatives indicated that the next of kin considered that the State’s acknowledgement was “an opportunistic gesture designed to lessen the impact of the Court’s eventual judgment,” because it is at variance with, and more limited than, the acknowledgements made in domestic judicial decisions. 23 Regarding the lack of investigation, they observed that the State had only acknowledged its responsibility by omission, while “this responsibility should be attributed to acts,” because “initial actions” relating to the processing of the crime scene and the intervention of the military criminal justice system “were determinant in the denial of justice.” They emphasized that “the dispute subsists [with regard to other issues] relating to the State’s obligation to investigate.” They also indicated that the dispute subsists as regards the alleged violations of Articles 11 and 22 of the Convention, because the State had not referred to those rights. In addition, the representatives considered it inconsistent that the State should acknowledge certain violations, but request the Court to restrict the reparations for those violations. 24. In particular, with regard to José Vicente Rubiano Galvis and Orlando Quijano, the representatives argued that the State’s position, “in addition to re-victimizing them, is not consistent with the conclusions” of the Merits Report or the statements of the presumed victims which reveal that “they were detained unlawfully and subjected to torture.” In addition, they underlined that the State had not acknowledged the violation of the personal integrity of the next of kin of these two individuals. Regarding Carlos Augusto Rodríguez Vera and Irma Franco Pineda, the representatives indicated that, apart from the violations acknowledged by the State, “additionally” they asked that the State be declared responsible for the violation of Articles I(a) and (b), III and XI of the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance. They considered that, by referring to the irregularities that it had acknowledged in the investigation of the events as “errors,” the State was not respecting 23 In particular, during the public hearing held on November 12, 2013, one of the victims, speaking on behalf of the others, stated that: “[t]he change in strategy on the eve of the hearing continues to offend the dignity of the victims, of their families, and of Colombian society, because it is belated, incongruent, opportunistic and re-victimizing. It is unacceptable that today, 28 years after the events, the denial, lies and farce that have characterized the response of all the Governments persists, cynically accommodating the official position to what, momentarily, is most expedient, hiding the truth, and further intensifying the injuries and the torture.” 12