2 3. The order of the Inter-American Court of September 30, 1999, in which it decided: 1. To require the State of Colombia to maintain the measures necessary to protect the life and physical safety of Sister Noemy Palencia (on her return to El Meta), Islena Rey, and Mariela de Giraldo and her two minor daughters, Sara and Natalia Giraldo, in whose favor the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered provisional measures in its orders of October 28, 1996, February 5, 1997, June 19 and November 27, 1998. 2. To require the State of Colombia to investigate and inform the Inter-American Court of Human Rights about the facts denounced, which gave rise to these measures, in order to discover those responsible and punish them. 3. To require the State of Colombia to provide information on the alternate mechanisms that will be adopted to execute effectively the provisional measures ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, as a consequence of the facts described in the Commission’s briefs of September 3 and 15, 1999, and the State’s brief of September 17, 1999, and on the efforts made to reopen the El Meta Human Rights Civic Committee. 4. To require the State of Colombia to continue allowing the petitioners to participate in the planning and implementation of the measures referred to in the previous point and, in general, maintain them informed on the progress of the measures ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. 5. To require the State of Colombia to continue presenting reports every two months on the provisional measures it has taken and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to submit its observations on the reports within six weeks of their receipt. 4. The brief of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Commission” or “the Inter-American Commission”) of June 6, 2001, in which it stated that on: June 5, 2001, Gonzalo Zárate Triana, who was protected by the provisional measures called for in the order of October 28, 1996, in the Giraldo Cardona et al. case, had been assassinated. The Commission then requested the Court to communicate with the Republic of Colombia (hereinafter “the State’ or “Colombia”) “to request the judicial authorities to conduct the corresponding investigation in order to clarify the facts and prosecute those responsible.” 5. The brief of the Secretariat of the Court (hereinafter “the Secretariat”) of June 6, 2001, with which it sent the State a copy of the Commission’s brief of the same date (supra 4) and, following the instructions of the President of the Court, Antônio A. Cançado Trindade, requested “that in the next report on compliance with the provisional measures ordered by the Court in this case, it submit information on the facts referred to and on the investigations that the State is conducting in order to clarify them and punish those responsible.” 6. The Commission’s observations of July 10, 2001, on the twenty-fifth report of the State, in which the Commission stated that: […] the assassination of Mr. Zárate and his brother confirms the critical situation of human rights defenders in the region of El Meta. Although Mr. Zárate waived the security plan suggested by the State and, as the petitioners indicate, voluntarily isolated himself from public activity as a way of protecting his life and that of this family, the absence of effective actions to investigate the origin of the threats and violence against the members of the El Meta Human Rights Committee and combat the agents who generated the violence in Villavicencio finally cost him his life.