Chile officials take over colony

[struggle4progress]

<snip>

Officials entered Colonia Dignidad in to take over its assets as part of an investigation into its former leaders.

Former Nazi Paul Schaefer, 83, is accused of aiding secret police under Chile's 1973-1990 military rule and sexually abusing 26 children.

Mr Schaefer was arrested in March after eight years on the run. <snip>

It is believed to have served as an interrogation and torture centre for political prisoners during Gen Augusto Pinochet's military regime.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4189920.stm

There's some reason to suspect that these thugs "disappeared" Penn State math professor Boris Weisfeiler when he was on a holiday hike in Chile in the mid-1980's ...

[Judi Lynn]

1. This Nazi assisted Pinochet in his Nixon-supported reign of terror

From another source:

Rich commune exists in shadow of dark roots
Knight Ridder Tribune News Service/April 23, 2003
By Kevin G. Hall
Colonia Dignidad, Chile -- The rows of corn grow tall and straight at Colonia Dignidad, one of the world's richest communes. Its timber products, baked goods and sausage, renowned for their quality, are sold nationwide. Its 65-bed hospital provides the region's best health care. One of the commune's elderly German hausfraus seems friendly enough, offering a traveler some apple juice for the road.

But the shadow of its founder and longtime leader, Paul Schaefer - - a former Nazi and Baptist preacher who fled Germany in 1961 amid charges that he had sexually abused boys in an orphanage he ran there -- hangs over the secretive 70-square-mile commune. So does the dark reputation it got during the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, when survivors say Colonia Dignidad provided hospitality to interrogators and torturers in his secret police.

Chilean investigators say more than 70 criminal investigations are pending against the settlement, Schaefer or other residents, including tax evasion, fraud, kidnapping and sexual abuse of children. Schaefer, who would be in his 80s, disappeared in 1996 while investigators were looking into 27 child sexual-abuse counts against him. Most complaints against the commune, located 225 miles south of Santiago, Chile's capital, date from the Schaefer era.

Colonia Dignidad's reputation suffered another blow recently when four of its roughly 270 residents defected. The four -- two founding farmers, their daughter and son-in-law -- are cooperating with Chilean prosecutors. In their first interview with a foreign newspaper, they and the investigators charged that torture, sexual abuse, forced labor and repression of their basic liberties took place at the settlement, but they offered few details.

The escapees also said they had seen Pinochet's sharpshooters undergoing training at remote Colonia Dignidad before the Sept. 11, 1973, military coup that toppled the elected socialist government of Salvador Allende.
(snip/...)

http://www.rickross.com/reference/schafer/schafer3.html

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Paul Schaefer

Last Updated: Friday, 11 March, 2005, 20:16 GMT

Secrets of ex-Nazi's Chilean fiefdom
By Becky Branford
BBC News

Allegations that Schaefer abused boys were persistently ignored
Paul Schaefer - a former Nazi medic, Baptist preacher and alleged cult leader - has finally been captured in Argentina after eight years on the run.

His arrest means he may face trial on outstanding charges of the sexual abuse of young boys in Chile.

Mr Schaefer, who is in his 80s, has also been denounced by former followers and by human rights campaigners.

For them, his capture signals the end to decades of impunity for what they allege are his strange and terrible crimes.

Paul Schaefer was a medic in Hitler's army during World War II. After the war, he set up an evangelical ministry and a youth home, purportedly to care for war orphans.
(snip/...)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4340591.stm

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Isn't it too predictable that Freeps have been, for several years, attempting to connect "fascists" with "socialists" so they can lump them indirectly with Democrats, and escape the obvious connection to themselves?

They've been working on pulling this off for at least 3 years, when I saw the first Freep hard at work trying to convince posters that they were one and the same, since Hitler was a "socialist."

[beetbox]

2. kick