11
31.
It is my understanding that this new development cannot and must not be ignored or
minimized by contemporary international juridical doctrine. The latter, or at least most of it,
regrettably continues to follow an anachronistic and extremely outdated State-centered
approach to the general issue of international responsibility. If it continues along these
lines, without directly linking international responsibility of the States to international
criminal responsibility of individuals, it runs the risk of becoming even more anachronistic,
in addition to being inevitably non-significant.
32.
International Human Rights Law and International Criminal Law must take each
other into account, reciprocally and jointly, as the former focuses on the international
responsibility of the State, and the latter on the international criminal responsibility of the
individual, and both must be addressed in a concomitant manner, as the atrocities are not
merely acts (or omissions) committed by isolated individuals on their own. In actual
practice, atrocities have received support from the acquiescence, tolerance, or collaboration
by the public authority of the State, in whose name said perpetrators often act.
33.
There are cases of omissions both by the public authorities of the State and by broad
sectors of the population itself (frequently terrorized). All this constitutes the existence of
aggravating circumstances, in the midst of a protracted pattern of grave, flagrant and
constant violations of human rights. These are, then, aggravated human rights violations.
34.
The grave acts in the instant case of the Mapiripán Massacre speak for themselves,
as can be seen in the chapter (No. VIII) of this Judgment on the facts proven before the
Inter-American Court. They are set within the framework of the phenomenon of the socalled “paramilitarism” that arose in Colombia especially after 1985, when the State fostered
the establishment of “self-defense groups,”, commonly called paramilitary (“constituted by
death squads, groups of hired murderers, self-defense or private justice groups”), “severely
damaging the country’s social stability.”13
35.
In this convulsed context, as this Court noted in the instant Judgment,
"The incursion of the paramilitary in Mapiripán was an act that had
been meticulously planned several months before June 1997, carried out with
logistic preparatory work and with the collaboration, acquiescence, and
omissions by members of the Army. (...) The authorities knew of the attack
against the civilian population in Mapiripán and they did not take the
necessary steps to protect the members of the community” (para. 96(43)).
The Court deemed it proven that “the Colombian army allowed ‘irregular flights’ that
transported” the paramilitary to the area to land, and they “facilitated transportation of the
paramilitary to Mapiripán"14. When they surrounded Mapiripán at dawn on July 15, 1997,
the paramilitary “were wearing uniforms that were used exclusively by the military forces,
they had short and long range weapons the use of which was restricted to the State, and
they used high frequency radios. "15 And the Court added, in its account:
13
.
Para. 96(2), (3) and (6).
14
.
Para. 96(30), (31) and (32).
15
.
Para. 96(34).