84 ii. iii. iv. criminal objectives, including confrontation, outside the law, with other illegal armed groups, as well as illegal drug trafficking; one of the main objectives of the policies of the State is to combat all armed groups outside the Law. For this reason, Colombia has also been attacked by the self-defense groups, as its victims include judicial officials and other public officials; in the case of Mapiripán, the massacre was planned and executed by the self-defense groups, who do not depend on others to carry out their criminal activities. The same applies to the narco-guerrilla groups, who likewise commit these atrocious acts and move about the national territory without the need for logistic or financial support. In both cases, the State combats them. What has unfortunately happened in some cases is that members of the Armed Forces have collaborated, as individuals, with these extreme right-wing or left-wing groups; and the State cannot be responsible for the acts of members of the self-defense groups or of the narco-guerrilla forces, under the terms of international law regarding the responsibility of States. The State is responsible for omissions by its authorities, when they could have protected the population and did not do so; f) the members of the Army who collaborated with these self-defense groups, as individuals, even if they did so by omission and in the way established by the regular courts, acted outside the Law and for this reason they have been sentenced to 30 to 40 years in prison. In the framework of its commitment to human rights, the State does acknowledge its responsibility because certain members of its Armed Forces, who did not act as the Law ordered them to act, did not protect the population and their omission entailed a violation of an international obligation; and g) it should be noted that, in the case of the “19 Tradesmen v. Colombia,” one of the considerations of the Court to reach the conclusion that the State was responsible by omission in that case, in which the criminal acts were carried out by members of self-defense groups, was that the legislation which initially allowed the existence of certain groups was in force at the time of the facts. In the instant case of the Mapiripán Massacre, that legislation was repealed many years before and the existence of those groups and their activities was criminalized by Decrees 1194 of June 8, 1989 and 2256 of 1991. The decision of the Court in the Paniagua Morales et al. case, mentioned by the Commission when it attributed responsibility to the State, in which the Court found Guatemala to be responsible because this State did not deny that members of the Guardia de Hacienda were State agents, does not apply in this case either. In the instant case, Colombia emphatically denies that the members of the self-defense groups are its agents or acted as such. Pleadings of the Commission 98. With regard to the international responsibility of the State, the Commission pointed out that: a) the acts of private individuals involved in said acts can be attributed to the State and, therefore, entail its responsibility in accordance with international