Search for bodies begins at Chile's Colonia Dignidad

[struggle4progress]

30 Prisoners “Disappeared” By Pinochet’s Military Regime May Finally Be Found


Weisfeiler's body may be found when investigators excavate Colonia Dignidad

(Oct. 12, 2005) Judicial officials expect to begin excavation this week for the bodies of political prisoners thought to have been killed at the Colonia Dignidad compound during the 17-year Pinochet’s military dictatorship. This latest chapter in the Colonia Dignidad saga follows the arrest of former colony leader Paul Schäfer in March and the discovery of an illegal weapons cache in August.

Jorge Zepeda, the judge investigating the case, will be coordinating the excavations from the nearby city of Parral, where Chile’s Legal Medical Service and investigative experts have set up a temporary base to process the forensic evidence police expect to find.

Colonia Dignidad was right-wing religious compound founded by German immigrants in 1961 near Parral in southern Chile. Its leaders are suspected of collaborating with former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet and Chile’s secret police force, the Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA), during the military regime’s 17-year rule.

Investigators have pinpointed three locations within the Colony’s compound where human bones, jewelry, shoes, and other personal belongings of political prisoners are suspected to be buried. The information came from the testimony of Efraín Vedder, a member of the Colony who escaped from the compound in December 2002. <snip>

http://www.tcgnews.com/santiagotimes/index.php?nav=story&story_id=10107&topic_id=1

[autorank]

1. This is an amazing story, one that needs wide distribution.

The Chilean dictators were not just your normal crook dictators. They were Nazi sympathizers and this location was their holy enclave. The stories about this place are chilling. It's time to take a real look.


Great Post!

[struggle4progress]

3. Weisfeiler's friends have tried for years to determine his fate. eom

[autorank]

4. "Unholy Alliance" Peter Levenda (Intro. Norman Mailer)...

This is a great book on cults, the Nazi cult in particular. The chapter on Colonie Dignidad is chilling. This is one of the stories of our time--how is it that a butcher shop of the soul and body could operate in the open for this long; how is is that these Pol Pots of South America could operate with the sanction of a government (Pinochet) that we supported?

[Fridays Child]

2. Right wing fundies are the same lovable, family values kind of folks...

...no matter where you go. /sarcasm

[levenda]

5. My visit to the Colony

As one of your posters mentioned, I visited Colonia Dignidad in late June of 1979. "Gate crashed" is probably the better phrase. The whole story is described in my book, Unholy Alliance, but briefly I had learned of the existence of the Colony in a book by Ladislas Farago, Aftermath, and since I was researching the survival of Nazis and Nazi ideology after the War it seemed like a good place to visit.

What an idiot.

Of course, this was during Pinochet's regime and a time of martial law in Chile. I had guns pointed at me more times than I remember. (Well, that's not exactly true. I vividly remember each and every one.)

I spent the night before with a bunch of local militia in the town of Parral, drinking a kind of aguardiente and discussing the Colony. They advised me not to go. They hated the place, and despised the fact that these German nationals had more rights and privileges in their country than they did. But as dawn came up that Sunday morning I found a driver and overpaid him exorbitantly to get me up the Andes mountains and to the Colony. All I really wanted to do was take a few photos and leave. Fat chance.

I arrived there easily enough, snapped off a few photos, and raced back to the car. Then the gates closed electronically in front of us, and a white Mercedes pulled up from out of nowhere, blocking our exit.

To make a long story short, they took my passport, destroyed my film, and would have destroyed me had I not -- unknown to me at the time -- chosen the one day that guaranteed my safety. It seems the German Parliament was voting on whether or not to extend the statute of limitations on Nazi war crimes. Paul Schaefer, the leader and founder of the Colony, was of the opinion that I was some kind of agent provocateur, sent there by the Israelis (that was the word he used) to cause some kind of scandal that might go against the vote.

They let me go after about a half hour or so of discussion among themselves and interrogation of yours truly. Boris Weisfeiler was not so lucky.

A few years after my visit, Boris was hiking in the region of the Colony when he was captured by Chilean security forces and taken to the Colony (as if the Colony were an official organ of the state, which it was). Photos of Boris Weisfeiler look remarkably like photos of me taken back in the 1970s, so it is entirely possible that the torturers at the Colony thought we were one and the same.

Since that time, I have been writing and talking about the human rights abuses, torture, interrogation of political prisoners, and the possible link that exists between the Colony and the assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington, DC. So far, very few have paid any attention. Perhaps now they will.

[struggle4progress]

6. Boris was a Jew who had immigrated to the US from Russia.

When he disappeared so close to the Colony in the mid-1980's, my immediate guess was that the nazis there had encountered him, decided he was some sort of Jewish Marxist spying on them, and had done him in.

I had originally learned about the Colony by reading back issues of CounterSpy -- which was one of the news-sources which the rightwing demonized during the Reagan era in the course of pushing the Intelligence Identities Protection Act through Congress -- and the Colony at the time seemed an obvious place to look.

I had absolutely no evidence for this view at the time, of course. But other people independently came to the same conclusion -- IIRC, the New York Times did a piece in the mid-1980's suggesting Weisfeiler might have disappeared into the Colony.

And a few years ago, some supporting documentation became available, thanks to FOIA.

Current noise surrounding the Colony represents to me at least one more opportunity to learn what happened to Boris: his sister still really wants to know ...

[levenda]

7. Boris was a Jew who had immigrated from Russia

The men at the Colony had the same view of me, in 1979. They told my driver that they "had to be careful, since the Israelis had diabolic designs" on them. They assumed I was Jewish, they were wrong but I am ethnically Eastern European ...

I hope they resolve the issue of Boris Weisfeiler once and for all, and soon. And I hope that the 30,000 files they have uncovered at the Colony tell more of the story, especially concerning the involvement of individuals and groups in the US who were aiding and abetting both the Colony and the Pinochet regime. I am particularly interested in knowing if there are files there on Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada, and other anti-Castro Cubans, some of whom were involved in the Letelier assassination in Washington, DC. I believe that is one reason why this very important story is not being covered in the media down here in South Florida ...

[newyawker99]

8. Hi levenda!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[silverweb]

10. Hello, Levenda!

I just visited your website listed in your profile and must say that your books look absolutely fascinating. I'd heard of Unholy Alliance, but haven't read it. Yet.

Anyway, thank you for your contributions and welcome to DU!

:hi:

[newyawker99]

14. Hi levenda!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[silverweb]

11. OMG...

There are no words for the horror and the evil in that. May justice finally prevail and after justice, there may yet some day be peace.

And welcome to DU!

[levenda]

12. DU

Many thanks to everyone who welcomed me to this site! Sorry I could not reply sooner, but I was hit by Hurricane Wilma and lost power for several weeks. Back again, though!

[MissMarple]

13. Glad to see you made it through Wilma.

:toast: