be considered. These criteria are applied with due regard to the specificity of each communication. The case under consideration, of which the Commission was seized through the present procedure, is a combination of four communications which it decided to consider together in view of the similarity of the facts related. The Commission had previously taken the same decision regarding communications submitted against Benin, Zaïre and Rwanda (Cf. decisions on communications 16/88, 17/88, 18/88, 25/89, Legal Assistance Group vs/ Zaïre, and 27/89, 46/91, 49/91, 99/93 World Organisation against Torture, International Association of Democratic Jurists, International Commission of Jurists and Inter-African Human Rights Union vs/ Rwanda. All these communications were submitted by non-governmental organisation and they all allege various violations that are inter-related and similar. 78. Article 56,1 of the Charter demands that anyone submitting communications to the Commission relating to human and peoples’ rights must reveal their identity. They do not necessarily have to be the victims of such violations or members of their families. This characteristic of the African Charter reflects sensitivity to the practical difficulties that individuals can face in countries where human rights are violated. The national or international channels of remedy may not be accessible to the victims themselves or may be dangerous to pursue. 79. In the above-mentioned decisions, the Commission recognised that in a situation of grave and massive violations, it may be impossible to give a complete list of names of all the victims. It will be noted that article 56,1 demands simply that communications should indicate the names of those submitting and not those of all the victims of the alleged violations. 80. Article 56,5 of the Charter demands that the complainants must have exhausted internal remedies, where these exist, before the Commission can be seized of a communication. The Commission maintains that one of the justifications for this demand is that the accused State should be informed of the human rights violations it is being accused of, to provide it with an opportunity to redress them and save its reputation, which would be inevitably tarnished if it were brought before an international jurisdiction. This provision also enables the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to avoid playing the role of a court of first instance, a role that it can not under any circumstances arrogate to itself. 81. The Mauritanian State was informed of the worrying human rights situation prevailing in the country. Particular attention, both within the national and international communities, was paid to the events of 1989 and succeeding years. Even if it were to be assumed that the victims had instituted no internal judicial action, the government was sufficiently informed of the situation and its representative, on various occasions, stressed before the Commission that a law known as the “general amnesty” law, dealing with the facts arraigned was adopted by his country’s parliament in 1993. The Mauritanian government justified the said law with the argument that “the civilians had benefited from an amnesty law in 1991, and consequently the military wanted to obtain 14