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COLONIA DIGNIDAD
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Location:
Colonia Dignidad is a settlement founded by German immigrants in 1961 and is located along the banks of the Perquilauquen river and the El Lavandero estuary, near Catillo in southern Chile.
Duration:
Survivors' testimonies have verified that the German colony was used as a detention and torture center during the 1973-77 period but precise dates are not known. Collaboration with the DINA, in form of property leases, began in late 1974. Although it no longer possesses the status of a charitable organization, the colony still exists today, under the name of Villa Baviera and is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Chilean judicial system.
Prisoners:
An unknown number of people were detained at Colonia Dignidad.
Conditions:
"In Villa Grimaldi I had access to the filing cabinet which contained records about people who were wanted or who had been detained..."
Research by Amnesty International and the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Rettig Commission) led these organizations to conclude that the colony collaborated with the DINA intelligence agency which was the predominant repressive agent of the period.
From the Rettig Report
This Commission should not make statements about issues or controversies that go beyond its mandate. However, it cannot avoid examining and making known its conclusions regarding denunciations about the use of Colonia Dignidad, through some kind of agreement between the DINA and the colony's leaders, for holding and torturing political prisoners. Colonia Dignidad has been denounced as the place many of the disappeared prisoners were last seen. This examination and these conclusions are part of the Commission's mandate to report not only the most severe human rights violations committed during the period covered by this report, but also their background and circumstances.
To examine this issue, the Commission received numerous declarations, testimonies and other evidence used in judicial files in Chile and the Federal Republic of Germany as well as documentary information and a large amount of circumstantial evidence and contextual references. The Commission requested, in writing, authorization to visit Colonia Dignidad, but this request was rejected by the colony’s leaders, also in writing.
Taking into account all the facts, the Commission has reached the following conclusions:
It is proven that there were diverse relations between the DINA and Colonia Dignidad. It confirms that once the DINA was created as "DINA Commission" in November 1973, its agents used properties such as Colonia Dignidad’s "El Lavandero" and the "hijuelas" of the former "San Manuel" estate in Parral for the DINA’s purposes, either for training its agents or other institutional ends. It also confirms that a house located on Ignacio Carrera Pinto street, formerly 262 Union Street, in Parral was acquired by the Sociedad Benefactora y Educacional Dignidad (Colonia Dignidad) through a written property agreement on May 24, 1974, registered under its name the following year and sold in 1986. It is known that this house was used by the DINA, specifically for its regional intelligence brigade. It is also known that the DINA Director and other DINA agents visited Colonia Dignidad and appeared to maintain cordial relations with its leaders.
"...My body was full of cuts and bruises. I was rotting everywhere. I had pus in my eyes, my nose. My mouth was completely numb. I could feel nothing in my penis and I couldn't feel my limbs. My body was full of cigarette burns..."
(Read excerpt from the book "After the First Death: A Journey Through Chile Time Mind", Toronto, 1996)
The Commission received a large number of declarations from individuals who were arrested by the DINA in Santiago and who said they were taken at some point to Colonia Dignidad, where they were held blindfolded and subjected to torture there. It also received declarations from people who were arrested in the Parral area or nearby cities of the region and brought to Colonia Dignidad, where they received similar treatment. A significant number of these declarations validate their claims and they are so similar to each other and with other information, including declarations by some former DINA agents and even former members of Colonia Dignidad itself - that there is no doubt about their truthfulness. The Commission must therefore conclude that a certain number of people arrested by the DINA were effectively taken to Colonia Dignidad, held there for a while, and some tortured, with not only the DINA agents' participation but also with that of people who lived there.
The Commission likewise received specific denunciations regarding disappeared (other than those who were only temporarily held at Colonia Dignidad), whose trace had been definitively lost in Colonia Dignidad. Apart from the fact that the Commission effectively considers these people disappeared, and the existence of indications that they may have been taken to Colonia Dignidad after their arrest, only one individual - alvaro Vallejos Villagran, can strictly be said to have disappeared forever after being transferred to Colonia Dignidad.
The Parral House
The DINA's Regional Intelligence Brigade (BIR) operated from the building on 262 Ignacio Carrera Pinto Street in the city of Parral. The BIR apparently had operative responsibilities and/or support that went beyond the immediate zone. Detained people were also held in this building, though there is no knowledge of fatalities among them.
History of Colonia Dignidad
A group of Germans who arrived in Chile in the mid-1950s founded La Sociedad Benefactora y Educacional Dignidad and were joined in 1961 by their eventual leader Paul Schaefer, who fled to Chile from Germany where he faced child molestation charges.
The colonists carried out agricultural and commercial activities on the 13,000 hectares of land they lived on as well as charitable activites such as running a free hospital and school. Throughout the years, there have been numerous incidents and public denunciations about Colonia Dignidad's activities and living conditions inside the colony. In 1991, then president Patricio Aylwin stripped Colonia Dignidad of its non-profit status and the colony re-organized under the name Villa Baviera. More than 50 charges were filed in the 1980's and 90's against Paul Schaefer and Colonia Dignidad from the labor board, customs service and the internal revenue service but the most notorious charges Schaefer faces are for several counts of sexual abuse of minors. As of early 1998, Schaefer remains a fugitive from the law despite a massive manhunt operation conducted by the Chilean police, including several raids on the Villa Baviera compound.
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