95 by members of the security forces with regard to actions by said groups. In the reports published since 1997 on the human rights situation in Colombia, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has documented the representative cases of violations of the Right to Life, in which it was alleged that the government and the Armed Forces collaborated with the paramilitary to murder, threaten or displace the civilian population. According to the 1997 report, the acts committed by the paramilitary constituted the greatest number of human rights violations reported in the country in 1997, including massacres, forced disappearances, and hostage taking. In addition to the above, in her reports the High Commissioner constantly refers to impunity of human rights violations and abridgments of International Humanitarian Law committed by the paramilitary and the connivance between those groups and the security forces, as a consequence of criminal proceedings and of criminal proceedings and of disciplinary investigations opened against them, that do not lead to the establishment of responsibilities nor to the respective punishment (supra para. 96.20). Specifically with regard to what happened in Mapiripán, the Report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights states that, “the specifics of the cases filed before the Office in Colombia suggest that the facts could not have taken place without that acquiescence, support, or complicity. Aside from the testimony of the witnesses an the observations by the Commissioner herself, the Ombudsperson [Defensor del Pueblo] also acknowledged that the paramilitary “ha[d] become the illegal arm of the security forces, carrying out the dirty work that the latter cannot do.”204 120. In the instant case, Colombia acknowledged the violation of international treaty obligations due to “the facts of July 1997” in Mapiripán, but it subsequently objected to attribution to the State of acts by the paramilitary who carried out said massacre. The Court notes that, while the acts that took place between July 15 and 20, 1997, in Mapiripán, were committed by members of paramilitary groups, the massacre could not have been prepared and carried out without the collaboration, acquiescence, and tolerance, expressed through several actions and omissions, of the Armed Forces of the State, including high officials of the latter. There is in fact no documentary evidence before this Court proving that the State directly conducted the massacre or that there was a dependent relationship between the Army and the paramilitary groups or a delegation of the public functions of the former to the latter. However, based on an analysis of the facts acknowledged by the State, it clearly follows that both the behavior of its own agents and that of the members of the paramilitary groups are attributable to the State insofar as they in fact acted in a situation and in areas that were under the control of the State. In point of fact, the incursion by the paramilitary in Mapiripán was an act planned several months before July 1997, carried out with full knowledge, logistic preparations and collaboration by the Armed Forces, who enabled the paramilitary to leave Apartadó and Neclocí toward Mapiripán in areas that were under its control, and left the civilian population defenseless during the days of the massacre by unjustifiably transferring the troops to other places (supra paras. 96.30 to 96.39, 96.43 and 116). 121. Collaboration by members of the armed forces with the paramilitary was shown by a set of grave actions and omissions aimed at enabling the massacre to take place and at covering up the facts to seek impunity for those responsible. In other words, 204 See Report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the human rights situation in Colombia in 1997, E/CN.4/1998/16, March 9, 1998, paras. 29 and 91; Fourth Report by the Ombudsman to the Colombian Congress, 1997, pages 59 and 60, cited in said Report by the High Commissioner.