Olga Weisfeiler's brother Boris
disappeared near Colonia Dignidad in 1985
ST Photo - Irene Caselli
 FAMILIES OF VICTIMS FLY TO CHILE DEMANDING COLONIA
DIGNIDAD INVESTIGATION
400 Sign Open Letter To Lagos,
Including U.S. Legislators
(Nov. 25, 2004) The families of
Boris Weisfeiler and Maarten Visser will deliver an open letter to
President Ricardo Lagos today, calling for an investigation into
Colonia Dignidad. They believe their relatives, who disappeared in
1985, were detained at the German enclave in southern
Chile.
Among the 400 signatories from 16 countries are
parliamentarians, academics, human rights campaigners including
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Ethical Commission
Against Torture, captains of industry and former
colonists.
“We demand the Chilean government take and promote
energetic and definitive action with regard to human rights
violations in the former Colonia Dignidad, freeing its inhabitants,
granting them the help they need and pursuing those found to be
responsible,” the letter says.
Sergio Laurenti, executive
director of Amnesty International Chile, told The Santiago Times the
letter “will put pressure on the government and those responsible to
talk. It cannot do too much but it demonstrates the concerns of 400
people. We hope that the government will listen.”
Colonia
Dignidad was founded in 1961 by Paul Schaefer as a 17,000-hectare
farming community for fellow expatriates near the Argentine border
in Region VIII, with the ostensible aim of providing health care and
education for the rural poor of the area. Schaefer had fled child
molestation charges in his native Germany.
Colonia Dignidad
was used as an intelligence and detention center by agents of Gen.
Augusto Pinochet’s military government and its leaders became all
but untouchable, despite reports they were abducting and abusing
local children. Escapees told of sexual abuse, forced labor and
abduction.
In 1998, Schaefer went underground after a warrant
was issued for his arrest. Since then he has been a fugitive and the
colony, now known as Villa Baviera, has been in decline (ST, Oct.
6).
Olga Weisfeiler, the sister of one of the foreigners
believed to have been held at Colonia Dignidad, also presented
personal letters to Lagos, one signed by U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy,
another by Rep. Barney Frank, pressing Chilean authorities to seek a
resolution to her brother’s case.
“I would like to help put
more pressure on the government to open up all Chile, all the human
rights cases,” Olga told The Santiago Times.
She is sure that
Colonia Dignidad will be mentioned in the soon to be published
Valech Report into torture during the1973-1990 dictatorship.
On Jan. 4, 1985, Boris Weisfeiler, a Russian-born Jew and
naturalized U.S. citizen, was taking a 10-day walking holiday in
southern Chile when he vanished. After a cursory investigation, the
Chilean authorities concluded he had drowned in the Nuble River in
Region VIII.
But U.S. State Department documents
declassified later revealed that in 1987 a man known only as
“Daniel,” an agent working for Pinochet’s secret police, informed
the U.S. Embassy in Santiago that he had been part of the team that
arrested Weisfeiler and took him to Colonia Dignidad, claiming that
he was a “Jewish spy.”
According to the Embassy’s memo on
the meeting with Daniel, “The only explanation of these unusual
practices his (Daniel’s) superiors offered him is that Colonia
Dignidad is a good ally.”
In 2000, a rare inspection of
Colonia Dignidad, now officially renamed Villa Bavaria, found a thin
folder labeled “Boris Weisfeiler.”
Olga has made visited
Chile four times since Boris’ disappearance, for an investigation
into her brother’s disappearance. She believes, as she stated in an
earlier letter to Lagos in 2000, that the solution to the riddle of
her brother’s whereabouts lies in Colonia Dignidad: “Only
unrestricted access to its territory would solve numerous crimes
that took place there and help its residents to gain freedom” (ST,
March 8).
The upshot of Olga’s lobbying was a recent letter
from Edward Kennedy to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, asking
that the matter be put on the agenda for President George W. Bush’s
meeting with Lagos in July. When the two leaders met, Weisfeiler’s
case was raised. U.S. officials assured the Weisfeiler family that
the White House “will continue handling this matter with the Chilean
government, both in Washington and in Santiago.” (ST, Oct.
6)
Shortly after his return from Washington, Lagos asked the
Ministry of the Interior to provide a report on Weisfeiler and
Colonia Dignidad. In October, the German and Chilean governments
agreed to compensate colonists who agreed to leave the
enclave.
Tuesday, Olga met Craig Kelly, the U.S. ambassador
to Chile, who pledged the Embassy’s support for her campaign. Boris’
case is on file with the Chilean police as “unresolved.”
The
parents of Martin Visser are also in Santiago to deliver the open
letter.
Visser was 18 when he disappeared Dec 12, 1985. He
had traveled from Holland to South America by sea as a working
passenger and was last seen as he set off to climb the Osorno
Volcano in Chile’s Region X.
Ten days later, Visser’s parents
were contacted by the Dutch consulate in Santiago and told that
Maarten “has had an accident on the volcano and you will not see him
any more.”
In 1990, the Vissers were contacted by a man who
gave a fake name. “He told me, ‘Your son is alive and was in Colonia
Dignidad,’” Loes Visser, Maarten’s mother, told The Santiago
Times.
In 2004, Pascalle Bonnefoy, a journalist for La Nación
who has written extensively on the Weisfeiler case, was told that
while Weisfeiler was at Colonia Dignidad, a young Dutch man known as
“The Pirate” was also there. Visser’s parents say their son was the
only Dutchman missing in southern Chile at the time.
“I hope
that someone will put pressure to open Colonia Dignidad, because
there are horrible things happening there – maybe still happening
there. It must be exposed; it must be out in the open,” Loes Visser
said.
Earlier this month, 22 senior colonists and nine
Chileans received sentences ranging from five years without benefits
to 541 days in prison as accomplices to 27 counts of child abuse
committed by Schaefer, their erstwhile leader who is still on the
run (ST, Nov. 18).
Hernan González, the specially appointed
judge who has been investigating the case for seven years, also
ordered the colonists to pay 520 million pesos’ (US$885,000)
compensation to the families of 11 of their victims.
Among
those sentenced was Dr. Harmut Hopp, the colony’s second-in-command.
Chilean authorities have been criticized for not acting
quickly enough to prevent Schaefer’s escape and for setting derisory
bail for other colonists, a number of whom fled before they could be
tried (ST, March 30).
The families will hold a press
conference next week, hoping to raise further the profile of their
campaign.
By Tom Burgis
(editor@santiagotimes.cl)
Links:
Boris Weisfeiler:
www.weisfeiler.com
The U.S. State Department’s human rights Web
site: www.derechoshumanos@state.gov
Read the open letter to
President Lagos: www.amnistia.cl
In the Santiago Times next
week, read an exclusive interview with Olga Weisfeiler.
|
.gif){kind=spacer}
