92 150. The CEH also stated in its final conclusions that: it has established that in Guatemala the military intelligence services conducted unconventional and irregular operations outside any legal order or framework. Their illegal operations were clandestine, both in their preparation and in their execution. The purpose of these missions was to ensure secrecy of a task so that it would not be possible to identify the accessories and direct perpetrators of the facts, to exonerate the agents of the State from all responsibility, and to thus ensure the ineffectiveness of any judicial or police investigation.243 151. Therefore, and pursuant to the proven facts, the Court deems it proven that at the time of the facts there was in Guatemala a pattern of selective extra-legal executions fostered and tolerated by the State itself (supra paras. 134.10 and 134.11). In this regard, the CEG stated in its final conclusions, with respect to the extra-legal executions, that: the State of Guatemala repeatedly and systematically committed violations of the right to life that in this Report are referred to as arbitrary executions, aggravated in many cases by resorting to extreme mercilessness, as happened for example in situations in which the bodies were abandoned with obvious signs of torture, multiple mutilations, bullet wounds, or burns. The agents of this type of violations were generally Army officers, specialists, and troops, death squads operating under the protection of the authorities or constituted by their agents [...].244 152. On this matter, the Court has pointed out that when there is a pattern of extra-legal executions fostered or tolerated by the State, this generates an environment that is incompatible with effective protection of the right to life . This Court has established that the right to life plays a fundamental role in the American Convention because it is a prior condition for realization of the other rights.245 When the right to life is not respected, all the other rights lack meaning. The States have the obligation to ensure the creation of such conditions as may be required to avoid violations to this inalienable right and, specifically, the duty of avoiding attempts against it by the agents of the State.246 153. Compliance with Article 4 of the American Convention, Article 1(1) of that same Convention, requires not only that no deprived of his or her life (negative obligation), but also that appropriate measures to protect and preserve the right in combination with person be arbitrarily the States adopt all to life (positive 242 Cf. report by the Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico, “Guatemala, memoria del silencio” in June, 1999, volume VI, page 369. 243 Cf. report by the Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico, “Guatemala, memoria del silencio” in June, 1999, Conclusions, page 31. 244 Cf. report by the Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico, “Guatemala, memoria del silencio” in June, 1999, Conclusions, page 44. 245 Cf. Juan Humberto Sánchez Case, supra note 9, para. 110; and “Street Children” Case (Villagrán Morales et al.), supra note 8, para. 144. 246 Cf. Juan Humberto Sánchez Case, supra note 9, para. 110.