9 20. Of the constituent elements of forced disappearance, the first two have undoubtedly been proven, since deprivation of liberty and the direct intervention of State agents or their acquiescence were present. Moreover, the existence of these two elements was public and well-known from the very beginning, when the patrol, “[a]fter detaining the members of the Hilario family, accusing them of belonging to the subversion, set fire to their homes to force them to leave, after which they were detained for the rest of the night totally naked in spite of the inclement weather.” 17” These events continued to be public and well-known all the way to the mine and up to the entrance to it, where they were killed. 21. It cannot be said, then, that there was a “refusal to acknowledge the detention and to reveal the fate and whereabouts of the persons concerned.” The “fate” and “whereabouts” of the 15 individuals detained was also public and well-known. Everyone knew that they were mistreated and taken away in inhumane conditions to the mine (judgment, para. 24, vi. and vii), and that they were killed there en masse (judgment, para. 24, xii). Everyone knows who the victims were (judgment, para. 24, ix and x). Therefore, it cannot be said that there was any concealment of the deprivation of liberty, from the time it began until it culminated with the massacre, or any refusal to provide information on the fate and whereabouts of the victims. What did occur was that there were some crude and unsuccessful attempts to conceal the crimes committed. 22. However, the element that was lacking - at least as soon as information began to spread about the macabre events that had occurred - was the typical uncertainty as to whether the persons were alive or dead, which is an enduring characteristic of forced disappearance. 23. Also absent was the element of clandestine detention and denial of the very fact of detention which, according to the CVR, was an essential part of the modus operandi in forced disappearances: “1.2.6. Modus operandi of the perpetrators of forced disappearance Forced disappearance was a complex practice that generally involved a series of acts or stages carried out by different groups of people. Forced disappearance generally ended with the execution of the victim and the disappearance of his or her remains. The following stages, not necessarily consecutive, can be identified: selection of the victim, detention of the person, transfer to a place of confinement, eventual removal to another place of confinement, interrogation, torture, processing of the information obtained, decision to eliminate, physical elimination, disappearance of the victim’s remains, and use of State resources. Throughout the process, the common denominator was the denial of the very fact of detention and the refusal to provide any information about what was happening to the detainee. In other words, the person entered an established circuit of clandestine detention, from which, if he was very lucky, he would emerge alive.” 18 24. Of course, what remains to be done - and given the characteristics of the case, perhaps it will forever remain pending - is the clear and complete DNA identification of the scattered remains. However, there is certainty that those remains correspond to at least fifteen individuals who were murdered in that place. This is not what happens in CVR Report, volume VII, page 532. CVR Report, volume VI, Section Four: Crimes and violations of human rights, Chapter 1: Patterns in the perpetration of crimes and human rights violations, page 84. 17 18