Colonia Dignidad: Chile's Nazi colony

[Jan Klimkowski]

Testimony of an Operation Condor and Pinochet-era Chilean secret service agent about the "Germans" of Colonia Dignidad:

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."

http://www.chipsites.com/derechos/testim...1_eng.html