-104(infra paras. 169 to 212). In order to determine the violation of Articles 4, 5 and 7 of
the Convention, which was examined in the preceding paragraphs, suffice it to say
that the Court finds that the investigations into the Pueblo Bello events conducted in
Colombia, in proceedings conducted by the ordinary and the military criminal justice
system, and by the disciplinary and administrative justice systems were seriously
flawed, and this has undermined the effectiveness of the protection established in
the national and international norms applicable in this type of case, and resulted in
the impunity of certain criminal acts that constitute, in turn, grave violations of the
human rights embodied in the provisions of the Convention cited in this paragraph.
149. The Court must emphasize that the facts that are the object of this judgment
form part of a situation in which a high level of impunity prevails for criminal acts
perpetrated by members of paramilitary groups (supra paras. 129 and 130). The
Judiciary has failed to provide an adequate response to these illegal actions of such
groups in keeping with the State’s international commitments, and this leads to the
establishment of fertile ground for these groups, operating outside the law, to
continue perpetrating acts such as those of the instant case.
150. In view of the above, the Court concludes that the State has not complied
with its obligation to guarantee the human rights embodied in Articles 4, 5 and 7 of
the Convention with regard to the persons disappeared and deprived of life in this
case, because it has failed to conduct a genuine, complete and effective investigation
into the facts that motivate this judgment.
*
151. In addition to the situation described above of the lack of due diligence in the
protection (including the preventive protection) of the inhabitants of Pueblo Bello,
and in the respective investigations, it was the State itself that created a dangerous
situation, which it then failed to control or dismantle (supra paras. 125 to 128).
Thus, although the acts committed by the members of the paramilitary group against
the alleged victims in this case are acts committed by private individuals, the
responsibility for those acts may be attributed to the State, owing to its failure to
comply by omission, with its treaty-based obligations erga omnes to guarantee the
effectiveness of human rights in these relations between individuals. And this is
implemented and aggravated by having failed to eliminate or effectively resolve the
dangerous situation caused by the existence of those groups and by having
continued to encourage their actions through impunity. Hence, the State is
responsible for the arbitrary deprivation of the personal liberty and integrity, and
also the life, of the 43 persons abducted in the jurisdiction of Pueblo Bello on January
14, 1990, and subsequently disappeared or murdered.
152. Regarding the determination of the violations committed in this case, it has
been proved that the 43 persons were arbitrarily deprived of their liberty; that six of
them were deprived of life, and that the other 37 are disappeared. It is true that
there is no evidence of the specific acts to which each of these people were
subjected before being deprived of life or disappeared. However, the very modus
operandi of the facts of the case and the serious failures in the obligation to
investigate allow us to infer that the persons abducted were tortured or subjected to
extreme cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, because it has been proved that
some of them had had their veins, ears or genital organs severed, their eyes had
been gouged out, and they had been “kicked and punched” to death (supra paras.
95(39) and 95(40)). In the least cruel scenario, they were subjected to grim
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