-3measures of protection. It also considered that the proceeding of monitoring compliance with Judgment and the provisional measures were not mutually exclusive, because it was possible that the irreparable nature of any damage that occurred could nullify compliance with the substance of the Judgment or the reparations ordered therein. 13. The alleged facts on which the request for provisional measures presented by the representatives are based, namely: a) Gaama Belfon Aboikoni declared that he had been threatened by another Saramaka leader and by a State official. This included “threats against [his] person, including the threat that [his] salary paid by the State would be terminated if [he] did not revoke said authorization [to his representatives].” Furthermore, he had been “subjected to pressure and threats by the persons mentioned above and [for that reason he] ha[d] significant concerns about [his] personal security.” Gaama Aboikoni also declared that he had been threatened on other occasions by the same Saramaka leader in the presence of an official adviser of the State that he “would suffer personal repercussions and substantial problems if [he] failed to cooperate” with the State and that “all the State’s support to the Saramaka People would cease”; b) Three Saramaka “Head Captains” testified that, in a meeting held on May 6, 2013, a ‘District Commissioner and the Director of the Ministry of Regional Development clearly and repeatedly threatened that [their] salaries paid by the State would be terminated if they continued their authorization for […] the Association of Saramaka Authorities [to represent them before the Court].” These “threats caused [them] great concern for their personal safety, because the State officials that made them were clear that there would be consequences if [they] did not comply with their demands”; c) These threats were made know on a national level and, in particular, in a television interview with Gaama Aboikoni in May 2013; d) Suriname awarded the mining rights to IAMGOLD on Saramaka territory without the consent of the Saramaka People and without regularizing this territory. The State allegedly signed the contract with IAMGOLD on June 7, 2013, 10 days after the private hearing before the Court, and e) IAMGOLD can start its operations on Saramaka territory at any moment. 14. The arguments of the representatives as grounds for their request for provisional measures, among which they indicated that: a) It is the State’s responsibility to adopt safety measures to protect all the persons under its jurisdiction and its obligation is even more evident in relation to those involved in proceedings before organs of the American Convention on Human Rights; b) The State’s acts and omissions threaten to cause irreparable damage to the possibility of the Saramaka People to guarantee their rights as ordered by the Court. If the mining exploitation continues and is expanded on Saramaka territory, this will result in grave irreparable and large-scale damage to the traditional lands and resources of up to 33 Saramaka communities, as well as to the integrity and culture of the Saramaka territory in general, which contravenes the Court’s judgment; c) “The viability of the Saramaka lands and territory for present and future Saramaka generations – the purpose of the Court’s judgment – is under imminent threat owing to the award of mining rights, and the survival of the Saramaka is threatened in violation of basic standards of State conduct and also of specific orders of the Court in this regard”; d) The adoption of provisional measures will permit the Court to improve its supervision of its Order not to authorize concessions on Saramaka territory without an impact assessment. This would reinforce the monitoring of the State’s compliance with both the “preventive and protective” aspect of these measures, and e) The recent concession of mining rights also ignored the criterion specifically identified by the Court as a necessary requirements for an exploitation concession on Saramaka territory; in other words, the guarantee of their survival as a tribal people.