99. With respect to the situation of people linked to UP, the Ombudsman's Office noted that "there is a direct relationship between the emergence, activity of and electoral support for the Patriotic Union and the murder of its activists and leaders in regions where this party’s presence was interpreted as a danger to the preservation of the privileges of certain groups.”73 100. The Commission referred to the wholesale assassination of members of Unión Patriótica in its Second Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Colombia and in the report on the country included in its 1996 annual report. According to that information, more than 1,500 members of the Patriotic Union political party had allegedly been killed since the party's formation in 1985. In the same report, the Commission noted that the party's leadership estimated that in 1996 "a member of the party was killed every two days."74 For their part, in 1995, the United Nations special rapporteurs on torture and on extrajudicial executions said that since 1985 UP was thought to have lost more than 2000 members, all of whom were assassinated for political reasons.75 101. As regards the targets of the assassinations, the Commission notes that, according to expert testimony cited by the Inter-American Court in its judgment in the case concerning the killing of the UP Senator Manuel Cepeda Vargas, [t]he acts of violence carried out selectively against the UP representatives were accompanied by crimes perpetrated against members of the communities or social sectors that belonged to or supported its political project in the different regions of the country. Abuses were committed in order to repress and teach a lesson. Using this mechanism, a generalized feeling of fear and terror was instilled that was able to progressively reduce the popular and electoral support for the UP, first in the areas where it received its main support and, subsequently, at the national level.76 102. The Inter-American Court said that the perpetrators of those acts of violence “belonged to different groups, including the most important, the paramilitary groups, but State agents also allegedly took part in them directly and indirectly.”77 The Court also mentioned that the data provided by the State indicated that “State agents (principally members of the Army and the Police) occupied second place among those responsible for the violence against the UP,” while the Ombudsman observed that, “when they could not confront the guerrilla directly, paramilitary or self-defense groups had converted the UP ‘into the visible part and the military objective of their strategy.’”78 103. The Inter-American Court noted that “the violence against the UP has been characterized as systematic.”79 For its part, the Constitutional Court of Colombia indicated with respect to the determination of 73 Cf. Report of the Ombudsman for the Government, Congress, and Attorney General, titled Estudio de casos de homicidio de miembros de la Unión Patriótica y Esperanza, Paz y Libertad, October 2002, cited in I/A Court H.R., Case of Manuel Cepeda Vargas v. Colombia. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of May 26, 2010. Series C No. 213, par. 76. 74 IACHR, Third Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Colombia, Chapter IX, “Freedom of Association and Political Rights,” OEA/Ser.L/V/II.102, February 26, 1999, par. 52. 75 United Nations, Report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, E/CN.4/1998/16, 9 March 1998. Opinion provided by expert witness Eduardo Cifuentes Muñoz, cited in I/A Court H.R. Case of Manuel Cepeda Vargas v. Colombia. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of May 26, 2010. Series C No. 213, footnote 84. 76 77 I/A Court H.R., Case of Manuel Cepeda Vargas v. Colombia. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of May 26, 2010. Series C No. 213, par. 78. 78 Cf. Report of the Ombudsman for the Government, Congress, and Attorney General, titled Estudio de casos de homicidio de miembros de la Unión Patriótica y Esperanza, Paz y Libertad, October 2002, cited in I/A Court H.R., Case of Manuel Cepeda Vargas v. Colombia. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of May 26, 2010. Series C No. 213, par. 78. 79 I/A Court H.R., Case of Manuel Cepeda Vargas v. Colombia. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of May 26, 2010. Series C No. 213, par. 81.