Quote:SAMUEL DEVIA TESTIMONY


Samuel Enrique Fuenzalida Devia, former DINA agent, aged 25, testifies for the Amnesty International vs. Colonia Dignidad trial in Bonn on October 30, 1979.

In Villa Grimaldi I had access to the filing cabinet which contained records about people who were wanted or who had been detained. I always needed to search through this cabinet in order to do my work. That’s how I knew that Loro Matías’ file had "Puerto Montt" written on it. This was a code. It meant that the detainee could not be allowed to survive. At the same time, it meant that the prisoner would be killed "on land." I don't know how this was done since I never killed anybody. There was another code: "Moneda." This meant the prisoner had to be killed by air or sea: for example, by flinging his body from an airplane or throwing the body, inside bags with rocks, into the sea...

During the time I was a DINA agent I went to Colonia Dignidad twice, in 1974.

My first visit to Colonia Dignidad ... was in the winter of 1974... I had to accompany an officer to the south, we were going to "the Germans."... We had orders to first go and pick up a prisoner from Cuatro Alamos in Santiago... it was Loro Matías... This prisoner was totally broken, he had been tortured. Too many things had happened for him to have been released....

(The witness, the officer and the prisoner travel south to Parral)

"We stopped at some gates. The prisoner was forced to get in a Mercedes. Two Germans were inside the car. The captain spoke German with them. I could tell by their language they were Germans.... the Captain, I had been told, also spoke German... almost all the DINA officers speak German.. the Captain at one point called one of the Germans "Professor." . (Once inside the compound, the prisoner was taken away by the "Professor" and the Captain, and the witness was led into a house.) "There was a table set for everyone. Once we were seated... the "Professor" came in. He was carrying a black German shepherd... On entering, the "Professor" made a gesture using both arms, which according to my way of thinking meant the prisoner was dead....

The DINA didn’t use the official name "Colonia Dignidad." In the colony, when one mentioned the place, we could only speak of "the Germans." I suppose this was so the prisoners would have no idea of where they were. If the prisoners heard the DINA agents talking about "the Germans" they could not know what they were talking about, because in Chile there are many Germans all over the place... Because of my activities in the DINA I know that President Pinochet made a visit to Colonia Dignidad in August 1974 on his return from a tour to the south of Chile."

Quote:DIGNIDAD TESTIMONY


"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..."

In February, 1975, a young medical student named Luis Peebles spent nine days in Colonia Dignidad. ... His testimony, along with that of other survivors and a former agent of the Chilean secret police, formed the basis of reports by Amnesty International, the United Nations and other human rights organizations that accused Colonia Dignidad of functioning as a prison camp and centre for training and experimentation with torture techniques, after the 1973 military coup.

"They tied me to a metal cot, but this time they put a helmet on my head. It had movable earflaps which allowed them to apply electrical current to my ears and rubber bands for around the jaw. This was so that when they kicked or punched me, my jaw wouldn't get thrust out of joint. They taped little wires to my wrists, thighs, glands, chest, neck and applied current in different parts.

"There was also an agent who used a little rubber object which gave off shocks when he hit me with it. They had something they used on my eyes, mouth, teeth, under my tongue and sometimes, when I was shouting, they'd put it right at the back of the palate. I had another one in my anus, at the base of the urethra and another under my nails... This went on for hours and hours. ...The pain was so great that I twisted and several times lifted up the bed. I even bent the cot which was of iron and broke the straps with the strength of desperation.

"The brutality of the treatment made me think I was the subject of an experiment to find out how much I could resist both physically and mentally. I was the guinea pig and they were there to learn."

Adriana Bórquez of Talca was taken from her home on April 23, 1975, thrown onto a bus "full of people" and taken across the Maule River and past Linares, whose lights she saw shortly before the bus turned off the highway onto a gravel road.

"They took me into interrogation, the shouting grew louder and there was music, I remember having heard "Capricho italiano" by Tchaikovsky. A man they called the prosecutor (fiscal) or "Doctor" did the questioning. They applied current; when they finished I could still hear the cries of others being tortured. It gave me diarrhea. ... I had electrodes everywhere and something gave me shocks that passed right through my body. I felt torn apart; just as I felt I was being emptied by mouth and anus, I lost consciousness."

Men speaking with both Chilean and foreign accents shut six-foot-tall Sergio González into a small box measuring no more than a meter, applying electrical current through holes. They also wrapped his head in a plastic bag and then applied current, until oxygen was used up; almost drowned him repeatedly in special tubs, which were at times electrified; and tied him to a sort of electric grill where they applied current generally and to specific parts of his body.

"Right after the coup, torture by the intelligence services and ordinary police wasn't very sophisticated and a lot of people died," Gonzalez said. "But in the Colony they produced the maximum of pain, without necessarily killing. They even put me in their hospital for a while, because of the torture."

From the book "After the First Death: A Journey Through Chile Time Mind",
by Lake Sagaris, Somerville House, Toronto, 1996

Jan Klimkowski Wrote:Testimony of a survivor:

Quote:DIGNIDAD TESTIMONY


"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..."

In February, 1975, a young medical student named Luis Peebles spent nine days in Colonia Dignidad. ... His testimony, along with that of other survivors and a former agent of the Chilean secret police, formed the basis of reports by Amnesty International, the United Nations and other human rights organizations that accused Colonia Dignidad of functioning as a prison camp and centre for training and experimentation with torture techniques, after the 1973 military coup.

"They tied me to a metal cot, but this time they put a helmet on my head. It had movable earflaps which allowed them to apply electrical current to my ears and rubber bands for around the jaw. This was so that when they kicked or punched me, my jaw wouldn't get thrust out of joint. They taped little wires to my wrists, thighs, glands, chest, neck and applied current in different parts.

"There was also an agent who used a little rubber object which gave off shocks when he hit me with it. They had something they used on my eyes, mouth, teeth, under my tongue and sometimes, when I was shouting, they'd put it right at the back of the palate. I had another one in my anus, at the base of the urethra and another under my nails... This went on for hours and hours. ...The pain was so great that I twisted and several times lifted up the bed. I even bent the cot which was of iron and broke the straps with the strength of desperation.

"The brutality of the treatment made me think I was the subject of an experiment to find out how much I could resist both physically and mentally. I was the guinea pig and they were there to learn."

Adriana Bórquez of Talca was taken from her home on April 23, 1975, thrown onto a bus "full of people" and taken across the Maule River and past Linares, whose lights she saw shortly before the bus turned off the highway onto a gravel road.

"They took me into interrogation, the shouting grew louder and there was music, I remember having heard "Capricho italiano" by Tchaikovsky. A man they called the prosecutor (fiscal) or "Doctor" did the questioning. They applied current; when they finished I could still hear the cries of others being tortured. It gave me diarrhea. ... I had electrodes everywhere and something gave me shocks that passed right through my body. I felt torn apart; just as I felt I was being emptied by mouth and anus, I lost consciousness."

Men speaking with both Chilean and foreign accents shut six-foot-tall Sergio González into a small box measuring no more than a meter, applying electrical current through holes. They also wrapped his head in a plastic bag and then applied current, until oxygen was used up; almost drowned him repeatedly in special tubs, which were at times electrified; and tied him to a sort of electric grill where they applied current generally and to specific parts of his body.

"Right after the coup, torture by the intelligence services and ordinary police wasn't very sophisticated and a lot of people died," Gonzalez said. "But in the Colony they produced the maximum of pain, without necessarily killing. They even put me in their hospital for a while, because of the torture."

From the book "After the First Death: A Journey Through Chile Time Mind",
by Lake Sagaris, Somerville House, Toronto, 1996

http://www.chipsites.com/derechos/testimonio_dignidad_2_eng.html

Peter Lemkin Wrote:They killed the peaceful, democratic and civil societies all over the world in the name of ... just plain evil.

Magda Hassan Wrote:Thanks for this important information and history Jan. I have an interesting documentary about Colonia Dignidad which includes Fuentes segment when Schaefer was captured in Argentina. Once I have worked out what format it is in I will upload it. It was not just a torture centre but was a part of Operation Condor. It had a very sophistucated telecommunications system extensive tunnels and many large armaments caches.

Three years hardly seems right for the many crimes he has committed and permitted and lives ruined. Still it is some small justice.

It seems they are presently trying to make Colonia Dignidad into some sort of weird theme park. Quite bizarre.

Magda Hassan Wrote:It seems they are presently trying to make Colonia Dignidad into some sort of weird theme park. Quite bizarre.

Charles Drago Wrote:

Magda Hassan Wrote:It seems they are presently trying to make Colonia Dignidad into some sort of weird theme park. Quite bizarre.

Six Flags Over Auschwitz.