-35Ndiaye, submitted pursuant to Commission on Human Rights [of the United Nations
Economic and Social Council] resolutions 1994/37 and 1994/82: Visit by the Special
Rapporteurs to the Republic of Colombia from 17 to 26 October, 1994,
E/CN.4/1995/111 of January 16, 1995, since it is useful for deciding this case.
*
80.
The specific facts that are in dispute include the possible transit of the trucks
with the alleged victims and the paramilitary group through the military roadblock
located between Pueblo Bello and San Pedro de Urabá. One of the fundamental
probative elements in this regard is the testimony of the self-confessed member of
the paramilitary group, Rogelio de Jesús Escobar Mejía.
81.
The State has alleged that there are alternative drivable routes by which the
members of the paramilitary group and the alleged victims could have left Pueblo
Bello.
82.
As will be indicated below, there is no dispute concerning the existence of
detours, paths and trails branching off the main road between Pueblo Bello and San
Pedro de Urabá (infra para. 138). This possibility was examined in the proceedings
before the Attorney General’s Office, during which four reports were submitted, three
of them by military officials in October 1990. Nevertheless, based on these reports, it
is not possible to conclude whether these other routes were drivable by the trucks in
question:
(a) Based on an aerial inspection of Pueblo Bello and the road to San Pedro de
Urabá, a “strategic expert opinion” given by a member of the Army indicated
that it had been determined that “there are many possible detours that [...]
do not require obligatory transit through the San Pedro military roadblock”;
(b) The report made by a tactical officer of the National Army explained that
there were adequate trails that were “drivable”;
(c) An Army officer prepared a topographical report in which he presented
several assessments resulting from an aerial reconnaissance and concluded
that “the trucks in which those abducted were transported did not necessarily
have to pass by the San Pedro de Urabá roadblock, because they could take
any of the detours or trails referred to. This possibility was reaffirmed by the
fact that, at the time of the crime, it was summer, so that the land was firmer
and easier to transit,” and
(d) And, in September, 1981, the Special Investigations Office of the Judicial
Police of the Attorney General’s Office inspected the road and the trails
between Pueblo Bello and San Pedro de Urabá and concluded that there were
six trails or detours from the main road, but could not state conclusively
whether all of them were drivable at the time of the facts or whether they
could be used as routes to avoid passing by San Pedro de Urabá (infra paras.
95(130), 95(131), 95(132) and 95(135)).
83.
The testimonies and statements received by the Court concur that trails or
detours exist, but some of them deny categorically that such trails would be drivable
by trucks. Thus, Rubén Díaz Romero stated that he had lived in the area for a long
time and knew it very well, and it was not possible for the trucks to reach San Pedro
de Urabá by any other road than the one that led to the military roadblock at the
entrance to the town. Ángel Emiro Jiménez, who periodically drove through the area
because he worked in the banana trade between Apartadó and Montería, agreed with
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