7
[I]t has complied with the duty to provide comprehensive redress, and has specifically complied
with the obligations of a pecuniary nature, with regard to the victims and/or their next of kin that
turned to the domestic judicial procedures […].
18.
In addition to the foregoing, in the section of its reply brief containing its petition, the
State also requested, inter alia, that the Court:
Declare that the Colombian State has complied with each of the recommendations made by the
Inter-American Commission in its report, number 29 of 2005.
[…]
Exclude from the list of injured parties the surviving victims and next of kin who received
compensation in the domestic legal system for the pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages they
may have suffered as a consequence of the events of “The Rochela”.
Declare that Wilson Mantilla Castillo and Manuel Libardo Díaz expressly waived international
reparation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages that they could have suffered as a
consequence of the facts of “The Rochela”, by virtue of the conciliation agreement signed with
them and their next of kin.
19.
Moreover, in the section of Colombia’s reply brief corresponding to Reparations,
under the title “Injured party”, Colombia requested that the Court “deny the claims”
submitted by the victims’ next of kin who “went directly to the Inter-American Court […]
without having brought forward any type of claim in the domestic forum, despite the
opportunity to do so”. Likewise, the State requested that ���the surviving victims and their
next of kin who […] received compensation under domestic law for the pecuniary and nonpecuniary damages caused [be excluded] from the list of injured parties” and indicated that
these individuals were “compensated in the contentious administrative courts and in the
settlement proceedings.”10
20.
After the presentation of the State’s reply brief, the representatives submitted a
“partial agreement in relation to some measures of reparation between the State of
Colombia and the representatives of the victims and their next of kin” to the Court. This
agreement was signed on January 31, 2007 and includes reparation measures related to: i)
honoring the memory of the victims, ii) the publication of the Judgment of the InterAmerican Court, iii) the damage to the life project of the victims and their next of kin, and
iv) the “damages sustained by some of the next of kin of the victims.”
21.
In one section of this partial agreement, the parties stated that the “reparation
issues in dispute” are the following:
Those categories of reparation requested by the representatives of the victims in their brief
containing pleadings and motions, regarding which there are no specific references in this partial
agreement, will be considered as matters in controversy before the Honorable Inter-American
Court. These include the following measures: 1) the obligation to investigate, prosecute, and
punish; 2) the juridical framework applicable to the process of the paramilitary demobilization; 3)
damage to the life project of the victims and their next of kin; 4) mechanisms to fight and
dismantle the paramilitary phenomenon; 5) training courses for officials which include monitoring
and evaluation; 6) the establishment of a National Human Rights Day; 7) a strategy for the
protection of administrators of justice who participate in the investigation and prosecution of
grave abuses of human rights; 8) economic compensation for the non-pecuniary and pecuniary
damages of the people that were not included in this agreement, and 9) costs and expenses.
10
Cf. The State included a list of “individuals compensated by judgments in the contentious administrative
courts”, which identified 45 next of kin of the 11 deceased victims and surviving victim Arturo Salgado Garzón, and
indicated that “no action for direct reparation was brought for the death of Arnulfo Mejia Duarte.” Likewise, the
State included a list of “individuals currently in extra-judicial settlement negotiations before the contentious
administrative courts” in which 15 next of kin and the two surviving victims were included.
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