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Judi Lynn

(160,598 posts)
Mon Oct 19, 2015, 05:03 PM Oct 2015

Chilean former spy and German 'cult' members sentenced over kidnappings

Source: Agence France-Presse

Chilean former spy and German 'cult' members sentenced over kidnappings

  • Fifty people kidnapped and tortured by Dina at Colonia Dignidad in 1975
  • Abductees were held in tunnels at secretive German-speaking community

    AFP in Santiago

    Monday 19 October 2015 15.25 EDT Last modified on Monday 19 October 2015 15.26 EDT

    A Chilean court has sentenced a former intelligence official and two residents of a secretive German community in southern Chile over the kidnapping of 50 people in 1975.

    Each of the three – Fernando Gómez Segovia, formerly with the feared National Intelligence Directorate (Dina), and Germans Kurt Schenellemkamp Nelaimischkies and Gerhard Mucke Koschitze – were given five years prison for their role in the April-June 1975 kidnappings, a court statement said.

    All three are already behind bars: Segovia is in a special prison for human rights abusers during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, while the Germans are in a regular prison for sex crimes committed in Colonia Dignidad, a German-speaking community in southern Chile.

    . . .

    Colonia Dignidad was founded in 1961 by Paul Schaefer, a former medic in the Nazi-era German army who fled Germany in 1959 after being charged with child abuse. More than 200 Germans lived in Colonia Dignidad.

    Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/19/chile-former-spy-germans-sentenced-kidnappings-colonia-dignidad
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    Chilean former spy and German 'cult' members sentenced over kidnappings (Original Post) Judi Lynn Oct 2015 OP
    Are these the folks Kissinger was working with? jalan48 Oct 2015 #1
    They worked for Pinochet, and we know Nixon and Kissinger backed Pinochet to the max. Judi Lynn Oct 2015 #3
    Thanks for sharing. jalan48 Oct 2015 #5
    Sí, señor! forest444 Oct 2015 #4
    And Bush Sr billhicks76 Oct 2015 #6
    Torture of political dissidents AND raping children all under the same roof? ck4829 Oct 2015 #2

    Judi Lynn

    (160,598 posts)
    3. They worked for Pinochet, and we know Nixon and Kissinger backed Pinochet to the max.
    Mon Oct 19, 2015, 05:48 PM
    Oct 2015

    Here's an article I just found:

    The Torture Colony

    In a remote part of Chile, an evil German evangelist built a utopia whose members helped the Pinochet regime perform its foulest deeds

    By Bruce Falconer
    September 1, 2008

    Deep in the Andean foothills of Chile’s central valley lives a group of German expatriates, the members of a utopian experiment called Colonia Dignidad. They have resided there for decades, separate from the community around them, but widely known and admired, and respected for their cleanliness, their wealth, and their work ethic. Their land stretches across 70 square miles, rising gently from irrigated farmland to low, forested hills, against a backdrop of snowcapped mountains. Today Colonia Dignidad is partially integrated with the rest of Chile. For decades, however, its isolation was nearly complete. Its sole connection to the outside world was a long dirt road that wound through tree farms and fields of wheat, corn, and soybeans, passed through a guarded gate, and led to the center of the property, where the Germans lived in an orderly Bavarian-style village of flower gardens, water fountains, and cream-colored buildings with orange tile roofs. The village had modern apartment complexes, two schools, a chapel, several meetinghouses, and a bakery that produced fresh cakes, breads, and cheeses. There were numerous animal stables, two landing strips, at least one airplane, a hydroelectric power station, and mills and factories of various kinds, including a highly profitable gravel mill that supplied raw materials for numerous road-building projects throughout Chile. On the north side of the village was a hospital, where the Germans provided free care to thousands of patients in one of the country’s poorest areas.

    All this was made possible by one man, a charismatic, Evangelical preacher named Paul Schaefer, who founded the community and who, until several years ago, remained very much in charge. Tall, lean, and of strong build, with thin gray hair and a glass eye, Schaefer lived most of his adult life in Chile but possessed only a rudimentary knowledge of Spanish; like his followers, he spoke primarily in German. Although the colonos of Colonia Dignidad dressed in traditional German peasant clothes—the men in wool pants and suspenders, the women in homemade dresses and headscarves—Schaefer wore newer, more modern clothes that denoted his stature. His manner was serious; he seldom smiled. The effect only deepened the sense of mystery that surrounded him.

    Few outsiders ever gained access to the Colonia while its reclusive leader remained in power. An old Chilean newsreel, however, filmed at Schaefer’s invitation in 1981, provides a rare picture of life inside the community, a utopia in full and happy bloom. The footage shows a bucolic paradise of sunshine and verdant fields set among clean, fast-flowing rivers and snowy peaks. Its German inhabitants improve the land and work their trades. A carpenter assembles a new chair for the Colonia’s school. A woman in a white apron bakes German-style torts and pastries in the kitchen. Teenaged boys clear a new field for planting. Children laugh and splash in a lake. Schaefer himself, wearing a white suit and brown aviator sunglasses, takes the camera crew on a tour. Standing next to the Colonia’s flour mill, he extols the quality of German machinery. “We bought this mill in Europe,” he says in broken Spanish. “It is 60 years old, but we have not had to do any repairs on it.” Even today, this remains one of the only known recordings of his voice. It is crisp and baritone. Back outside, Schaefer leads the television crew to a petting zoo, where the reporter feeds chunks of bread to baby deer and plays with the colonos’ collection of pet owls. The newsreel concludes with a performance by a 15-piece chamber orchestra composed of young, female colonos in flowing white skirts and colorful blouses. The music is beautiful and expertly played.

    These images were a reflection of Colonia Dignidad as Schaefer wanted it to be seen. Today, a quarter century later, with Schaefer gone and his utopia open to visitors for the first time, it looks much the same. On a recent trip to Chile, I made the four-hour drive south from Santiago. The village remains an oasis of German tidiness, with blooming flower gardens and perfectly tended copses of willows and pines. As I walked through it, there were very few people on the streets, and those I encountered smiled politely, then quickly retreated indoors. They did not invite conversation. I was reminded of what a Chilean friend, a journalist, had told me as I prepared for my visit. “You will get the uneasy feeling of crossing into some sort of twilight zone,” he had said. “You will see the way they dress, their haircuts. It’s like going back in time to Germany in the 1940s. Even though it is easier to talk to the colonos than it was a few years ago, things are still a long way from being ‘normal.’ Most of them are still quite afraid of speaking openly.”
    More:
    https://theamericanscholar.org/the-torture-colony/#.ViViCOSFObw

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    Horrible, horrible place. Horrible crimes commtted there.

    jalan48

    (13,880 posts)
    5. Thanks for sharing.
    Mon Oct 19, 2015, 05:54 PM
    Oct 2015

    This is bizarre-"like the Twilight Zone". I wonder if there is a connection between Colonia Dignidad and the Nazis who were able to flee to S America before Hitler's downfall?

    forest444

    (5,902 posts)
    4. Sí, señor!
    Mon Oct 19, 2015, 05:54 PM
    Oct 2015

    But that all ended (temporarily) when Jimmy Carter took office. It came as quite a shock to many a Latin dictator that the U.S. State Department would no longer give them a pass, much less spoil them as Kissinger had - and Carter had just the woman to deliver the message:



    Reagan, of course, later tried to restore ties with these kleptocracies, referring to them as "magnificent generals" and "moderately repressive", hosting many of them at the White House, and giving some of them (such as Pinochet's Chile) flexible bridge loans and Most Favored Nation trade status (this is why, to this day, you see so many Chilean grapes and avocadoes at the store). I might add he did this while undermining nascent democracies in Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, and of course Nicaragua.

    But it was too late: thanks largely to Carter, the dictators' image had suffered too much to really support - and by 1986 even Reagan's official dictatorship coddler, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, had abandoned them.

    ck4829

    (35,082 posts)
    2. Torture of political dissidents AND raping children all under the same roof?
    Mon Oct 19, 2015, 05:35 PM
    Oct 2015

    There is no way Pinochet and Contreras didn't know about Schaefer's little secret, I'm sure his love of raping children and shocking/drugging people in his little cult made him and his enforcers all the more of an asset to DINA.

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