25. In this Concurring Opinion in the present Interpretation of the Judgment in the case of the Castro Castro Prison versus Peru (2007), I had to evoke my reflections enshrined in another two of my Concurring Opinions in two cases of massacres regarding to different States Parties to the American Convention on Human Rights, specifically, the case of the Mapiripán Massacre, regarding Colombia (Judgment of 09.15.2005), and the Plan de Sánchez Massacre, regarding Guatemala (Reparations, Judgment of 11.19.2004).23 In effect, in my Concurring Opinion in the case of the Mapiripán Massacre, I allowed myself to consider that “One does not combat terror with terror, but rather within the framework of the Law. Those who resort to the use of brute force brutalize themselves, creating a spiral of widespread violence that ends up turning the innocent, including children, into victims. (...) Brute force generates brute force, and at the end, what do we have? Nothing, general devastation, the breakdown of the social fabric, vengeance, torture, and summary executions and other grave violations of International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law, the transformation of human beings into mere instruments of confrontation and destruction –opening wounds that will require generations to heal." (paras. 46-47). 26. And, in the same Concurring Opinion in the case of the Mapiripán Massacre, I added: As I noted in my Separate Opinion in the case of the Plan de Sánchez Massacre (reparations, Judgment of 19.11.2004), "the ancient Greek were already aware of the devastating effects of the use of brute force and of war, both on the victors and on the vanquished, revealing the great evil of substituting ends with means” (para. 29); since the times of Homers Iliad to the present day, all those in favor of brute force have become cogs in the killing machine. As in Homers Iliad, “there are neither victors nor vanquished, they are all taken over by force, possessed by war, degraded by the devastation of brutality and massacres” (para. 30), perpetuating themselves, multiplying their innocent victims. Long after Homer, in the 3d century of our age, Plotinus (204270), in his Enneads, argued that the fate of human beings cannot be left to chance, to fortune, because human beings are gifted with reason, which must prevail24 under all circumstances, at it is not just any type of reason, but a noble one, above the natural state, and which guides everyone.25 In our somber times, we must remember Plotinus’ enduring Law (European University Institute)/Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 25-566. . The texts of both Concurring Opinions are reproduced in: A.A. Cançado Trindade, Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos - Esencia y Trascendencia (Votos en la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, 1991-2006), México, Edit. Porrúa/Universidad Iberoamericana, 2007, pp. 595-613 and 457-465. 23 . Plotinus, The Enneads, London, Penguin, 1991 [reed.], p. 522. . Ibid., p. 33. 24 25 8