15 Commission, the acknowledgment of responsibility made by the State and the body of evidence. * * * 40. On August 29, 1990 members of the Guatemalan Army accompanied by members of the Civil Self-Defense Patrols33 arrived at the Community of Population in Resistance of Santa Clara known as “La Sierra”, Municipality of Chapul, Department of El Quiché, and captured 86 of its residents.34 This community was made up of groups of families that had been moved35 who had sought refuge in the mountains, as resistance to the strategies of the Guatemalan Army used against the population displaced during the armed conflict.36 33 The Civil Self-Defense Patrols were created at the end of 1981 by the military regime de facto led by the General Efraín Ríos Montt, as part of the anti-insurgent policy, whose goal was to exterminate the guerrilla movement through the relocation of the indigenous population and the eradication of “any person or community of suspicious people, through procedures that violate human rights.” The PACs started in the department of Quiché, and expanded to other departments. Cfr. application of the Inter-American Commission, para. 74, and Fourth Report on the Human Rights Situation in Guatemala. Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, 1993. Chapter VI. (Available at: http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/Guatemala93sp/cap.6.htm) 34 Cfr. CEH, Guatemala, Memoria del Silencio, Volume X, Annex II: Cases Presented, pages 1210 and 1211, (Available at http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ceh/gmds_pdf/). 35 Regarding the phenomenon of the displacement of the indigenous population, Cfr. Case of the Plan de Sánchez Massacre v. Guatemala, supra note 16, paras. 42(5), 42(6). In this Judgment the Court considered as proven that: […]the most violent period of this conflict was between 1978 and 1983, when the military operations focused on the regions of Quiché, Huehuetenango, Chimaltenango, Alta and Baja Verapaz, the southern coast and Guatemala City. During these years, counterinsurgency policy in Guatemala was characterized by “military actions geared toward destruction of groups and communities as well as forced geographic displacement of indigenous communities when they were considered potential supporters of the guerrilla forces;” […] these military actions, known to or ordered by the highest authorities of the State, consisted primarily of killing defenseless population, known as massacres and “scorched earth operations.” According to the Report by the Historical Elucidation Committee, approximately 626 massacres were carried out by means of cruel actions directed at eliminating persons or groups of persons previously identified as targets of the military operations and with the aim of causing terror as a mechanism of social control; […] 36 Cfr. expert opinion of Javier Gurrieran Prieto, given before a notary public (affidavit) on April 4, 2008 (Dossier of merits, Volume II, folios 359 through 381); Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, Report of Merits No. 71/04, para. 58 (dossier of annexes to the application, Appendix 1, folio 15). Similarly, on the Communities of Population in Resistance, cfr. Case of Myrna Mack Chang v. Guatemala, supra note 15, para. 134(7).