Colonia Dignidad: Chile's Nazi colony

[Magda Hassan]

Al Jazeera have been doing an investigation into Colonia Dignidad.

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[TD="class: articleTitle"]The Colony: Chile's dark past uncovered
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[TD]How did a secret German sect in Chile become a haven for Nazi fugitives and a torture centre for the Pinochet regime?

Al Jazeera Correspondent Last updated: 09 Nov 2013 14:09
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Forty years after the US-backed military coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile, the truth about the sordid abuses and crimes that took place during his dictatorship are still emerging.

The mountains of Patagonia in southern Chile witnessed a particularly bizarre chapter of the Pinochet era; one that is still claiming victims today.
In 1961, a former Nazi officer called Paul Schaefer fled Germany, along with hundreds of others, to found a sect in southern Chile. In an idyllic rural enclave framed by the Andes Mountains he created a virtual state within a state - one where horrifying events unfolded.
Initially with the ignorance of the government, and then with the complicity of the Pinochet regime, children were separated from their parents at birth and raised in a Kinder House. Men and women were kept apart and often drugged, while Schaefer systematically sexually abused boys and, occasionally, girls.

But it was not only the residents of Colonia Dignidad, or the Dignity Colony, that endured such brutalities. The secluded Colony, set on a huge estate featuring forests, mountains and rivers and enclosed by electrified barbed wire fences and look-out posts manned by armed guards, was the perfect place for the interrogation, torture and disposal of anyone Pinochet considered to be an enemy.

It also served as a haven for Nazi fugitives - such as Walter Rauff, the inventor of the portable gas chamber, and Joseph Mengele, the so-called 'Angel of Death' - who were permitted to hide out there in exchange for overseeing sophisticated forms of torture.

All of this took place with the full knowledge of the Pinochet regime, whose notorious intelligence chief, General Manuel Contreras, would often visit the site.

In The Colony: Chile's dark past uncovered, the truth about what took place inside the Colony is revealed through the story of Winfried Hempel. Now 35, Hempel was born into the Colony and raised there without any knowledge of who his parents were. When he first left its grounds, he was 20 years old, spoke no Spanish, had no notion of the country in which he lived and had never seen a television, computer or mobile phone.

Although he initially struggled to adapt to the world beyond Colonia Dignidad, he gradually learned to speak Spanish, received his high school certificate and eventually qualified as a lawyer.
Al Jazeera's Lucia Newman has followed the story of the Colonia Dignidad since 1996 - at one point even being turned away from the site at gunpoint. As a Chilean, she wants to expose the crimes that took place there - crimes that her country was not only complicit in, but an active participant to.[/TD]
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[TD="class: articleTitle"]An undignified colony
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[TD]Al Jazeera's Lucia Newman unravels a tale of torture and child abuse in a secretive German sect in Chile.


Lucia Newman Last Modified: 07 Nov 2013 13:47

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[TD]There have been allegations that biological as well as conventional weapons were produced in the Colony during the Pinochet years [Al Jazeera]
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[TD="class: DetailedSummary"]Every once in a while there is a real life tale that is so extraordinary and so horrifying it seems more like the plot of a fictional Hollywood movie. The story of Colonia Dignidad is one of these.
Chile was still under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet when I first heard about the mysterious German sect living in an enclave in the country's rural south.
Located just a couple of hours' drive from the city of Talca, where my mother was born and I often vacationed as a child, Colonia Dignidad or Dignity Colony had been established in 1962 as a charity. A hospital located near the entrance to the enormous estate offered care to poor locals, but not even the local police could enter any deeper into what was widely described as a state within a state'.
The Colony, with its forests, rivers and mountains, was a fortress surrounded by electrified barbed wire fences and look-out towers manned by armed guards. Trees and rocks hid hearing devises and cameras.
Its leader, Paul Schaefer, was a former Nazi army nurse.
Like many of the region's powerful politicians and landowners, Schaefer was opposed to Salvador Allende, the socialist president who came to power in 1970. But his opposition took on a distinctly practical dimension when he allowed the Colony to be used as a secret training ground for right-wing paramilitary groups.
After Allende was overthrown in a military coup in 1973, Schaefer forged a sinister alliance with the Chilean army, the details of which are still being unravelled today.
A quasi-concentration camp
Many years later, as Chile was returning to democracy after 17 years of dictatorship, I learned that the Colony had been used as an experimental torture centre, and that with the help of his henchmen, Schaefer was mistreating' the 300 or so German colonists, whom locals claimed sometimes acted like zombies.

A few had managed to escape and return to Germany, where they revealed terrible stories of exploitation, punishment and forced drug use designed to keep them under control, in what they described as a quasi-concentration camp.
In 1990, I tried to enter the Colony to film a television report, but, like other colleagues, was chased away at gunpoint. Journalists who tried to uncover what was taking place there were fired at from long distance.
While the new, democratic president subsequently ordered that the Colony's status as a charity be revoked, it was not shut down.
Then, in 1996, a lawyer named Hernan Fernandez dared to take on Schaefer, amid allegations that he had sexually abused scores of young boys, both German and Chilean.
By then I was no longer living in Chile and did not pick up the story again until 2006, shortly after Schaefer was finally captured and imprisoned for the sexual abuse of minors.
With the doors of the Colony finally opened to the outside world or so it seemed a shocking picture emerged. The bodies of dozens of Chilean political prisoners were buried in the grounds and a cache of weapons submachine guns, grenades and rocket launchers - was discovered.
A window into darkness
By now the Colony had been renamed Villa Baviera, and a bid to reform its image began.
I was allowed to visit with my cameraman, but the residents, most of whom only spoke German, were reluctant to talk to journalists. It was hard to shake the sense that many were afraid. And with former accomplices of Schaefer still living there, it was not difficult to understand why.
But, while our official host was distracted, I did manage to speak to 50-year-old Helmut Schaak, who worked in the Colony's flour mill. With a thick German accent, Helmut, who had come to Chile as a child, offered a disturbing glimpse into the lives of the residents. Until recently, he explained, the men and women of the Colony had not been allowed to mix and while he had eventually been permitted to marry "in order to produce more children", he was now concerned that he would not know how to raise a "normal" family. Helmut, who said he had not been aware of the torture and killings that had taken place there, was afraid to leave the enclave to venture into an unknown world beyond its gates.
It was clear that there was much I still did not know about the workings of the Colony. But, thanks to a German friend, Volker Petzoldt, a former high-ranking UN official in Chile who has spent decades investigating Colonia Dignidad, a new window into its dark secrets was about to be opened.
Volker, who was key in producing our documentary, introduced me to Winfried Hempel, a young man who was born in the Colony and whose story revealed horrors the extent of which I could not have imagined. He and others we spoke to described, among other things, children being separated from their parents at birth, perverse sexual experiments and forced drug use and sterilisation.
With the help of Volker and Winfried, I discovered that all of this had transpired for decades under the noses of successive Chilean and German governments. In fact, it was not until early this year, 2013, that many - though not all - of Schaefer's top henchmen were finally imprisoned.
Biological weapons?
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[TD="align: center"]Lucia travelled to Krefeld, Germany where Schaefer was a preacher before he set up the Colony [Fadi Benni][/TD]
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During our investigation Hernan Fernandez, the lawyer who first brought charges against Schaefer, revealed that the sect leader had tried to murder him with a chemical weapon. "After Schaefer was imprisoned, the man who had been sent to kill me confessed, in tears, that he spent days trying to spike my car with sarin gas, but was unsuccessful because I didn't own a car," he explained.
There are strong allegations that biological as well as conventional weapons were produced in the Colony during the Pinochet years. In the 1980s, Chile and its larger neighbour Argentina came to within days of going to war and the theory is that Chile's dictator was prepared to use chemical weapons in case of an attack. There is already credible evidence that biological weapons were used to eliminate domestic opponents.
So, why is it that an investigation into the production and use of these weapons has only just began? And what other secrets contained in the thousands of files discovered inside Colonia Dignidad are now being kept from the public by a Chilean judge for reasons of national security'? Why was Schaefer allowed to get away with murder, rape and kidnapping for so long before, during and after the military dictatorship? Just how deep into the Chilean establishment did his protection network extend? Why didn't his victims rebel? And what has happened to them since?
These were the questions I wanted answered when we began filming The Colony: Chile's dark past uncovered. I revisited Vila Baviera and spoke to many of the key protagonists in both Chile and Germany, where this saga began.
Today, the former Colony of horrors has been turned into a German-style tourist resort with its own hotel and restaurant.
Some, like Winfried whose parents remain there are outraged. But others feel they have a right to try to make a new life and living in the place where many of them sacrificed their youth, health and sanity.
Many of those who decided to leave, like Helmut Schaak - who in 2008 finally tried to start a new life far from the Colony - are now struggling to make enough money to survive. Now, in an unprecedented lawsuit, Winfried and more than 100 others from the Colony are suing the Chilean and German states for damages and moral reparation. They argue that both states were negligent and at times even complicit in allowing the suffering of the colonists for four decades. In the case of Germany, the constitution obliges the state to defend the rights of its citizens even on foreign soil. Up until the mid-1980s, however, many colonists who escaped and went to the German embassy for help were actually sent back to Schaefer.
In the process of making this film, I did find many of the answers I was looking for. But the more I learn about Colonia Dignidad, the more I realise how little I know and just how many layers of this story are still waiting to be exposed.http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/alja...58114.html[/TD]
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[TD="class: articleTitle"]Lessons in torture
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[TD]How did a German sect run by a former Nazi army nurse become an experimental torture centre for Chile's Pinochet?


Lucia Newman Last updated: 11 Nov 2013 05:01

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[TD]The Colony had camouflaged underground spy centres used to control the movements of the residents [Al Jazeera]

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[TD="class: DetailedSummary"]The foothills of Chile's Andes Mountains have been home to a group of German residents for the past 50 years. This community is now known as Villa Baviera, but most still call it by its original name, Colonia Dignidad, or the Dignity Colony.

With rolling hills, rivers and forests, its facade is idyllic. But residents have revealed stories of child abuse, forced labour, torture and killings.
Winfried Hempel was born in the Colony. In the late 1950s, his parents met Paul Schaefer, a former Nazi army nurse turned Baptist preacher, and joined his flock.
"After World War II all Germany was in a situation of moral defeat and disorientation, people looked for a straw to grasp at .... They looked for preachers and so on and Schaefer was one of these figures who attracted people," explains former Amnesty International employee Dieter Maier.
Schaefer began his career as a self-proclaimed preacher in a small northern German town, but when the mothers of two young boys accused him of abusing their children and the authorities issued an arrest warrant, he fled to Chile. Three-hundred of his followers joined him.

"Schaefer told his believers that communism, that the Russians where going to occupy Germany and that they had to leave before and they believed him," says Dieter.
'Attacker and saver'
By 1962, Schaefer and his group had established themselves as a charity in central Chile. They set up a farm, a bakery and even a state-subsidised hospital that offered free treatment to the local population, all with the blessing of the Chilean authorities.

"Schaefer wanted to reproduce a regime like the ones in the early biblical days ... where everyone shared everything," explains Winfried.
Families were split up and separated into groups by age and gender, with babies taken from their mothers at birth. All adults were known as uncle or aunt, while Schaefer was called eternal uncle.

Winfried did not learn who his parents were until he was 10. From the age of seven he was sent to work in the fields and says that "those who didn't obey the rules were beaten, locked up, and [faced] other punishments".

The community followed Schaefer's every command.

"Schaefer had blood hounds, dogs, and he unleashed them, let them attack children and at the last moment he called them back so he was the attacker and the saver at the same time," Dieter explains.
Werner Schmidtke was two when his mother brought him to the Colony. He was separated from her and raised with other young boys by a group aunt. One night, when he was about seven, he was told that Schaefer wanted to see him in his bedroom.
Werner recalls what happened next: "He threw me on the bed, he spoke very softly to me, he caressed me like a father who loves his child. So I thought nothing odd .... Then something happened that shocked me. Why? Because he pulled my arm, he pulled me further down and finally I could feel something that he wanted that I did not want to do. He pulled me with force, and as a child I could not oppose."
Chilean lawyer Hernan Fernandez says that the sexual abuse of children was a ritualised, well-organised practice: "[It was] a paedophile's paradise with children that did not have the help or protection, because in Colonia Dignidad families did not exist, nor parents or anyone who could help them. Schaefer's sexual abuse was brutal, he abused three or four different boys in the same day."

When he would not submit willingly to Schaefer's demands, Werner and some other boys were subjected to experiments.

"I heard a strong scream from another boy," he recalls. "Then I found out why - it was my turn with electro shock. It was brought from Germany, that thing they use for prodding cattle. It was very strong. They shocked us in the soft parts of the body, in the head ... and testicles."
A state within a state
By the late 1960s, the Colony had become highly efficient at making money for Schaefer and his inner circle. The workers were allowed just one day of rest a year and were never paid for their labour, while Schaefer used the proceeds of their toil to fortify the enclave with barbed wire fences, watch towers, hidden bunkers, and concealed motion sensors and cameras, ensuring that escape was almost impossible.

It was, in effect, a state within a state, where the laws of Chile did not apply.
Schaefer carefully choreographed the image of the Colony so that, to visitors, it resembled a perfect slice of Germany in a foreign land. It was an impression he was keen to promote as he established links with the local police, judges and Chile's powerful right-wing groups.
"Psychologically Schaefer was a genius," explains Dieter. "He was mainly illiterate but psychologically he was really good at manipulating people. In order to keep a fanatic community together you need an enemy. For Schaefer this enemy was the devil ... so anybody who criticised anything was a communist or inspired by the devil."
Schaefer and his most trusted lieutenants crushed any dissent. Gudrun and Wolfgang Mueller were among the earliest settlers. When they protested against conditions in the Colony, they were force-fed drugs intended to treat epilepsy and schizophrenia.

"Whenever I spoke they would punish me with drugs, electro shocks and locking me up," Gudrun remembers.

Schaefer was also in contact with some prominent Nazi fugitives living secretly in South America, among them the 'Angel of Death' Josef Mengele, who conducted experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz, and Walter Rauf, the inventor of the mobile gas chamber.

"It was an excellent refuge for receiving Nazis who were fugitives ... because it was so sealed off," explains Isaac Frenkel from the Chile Hebrew Association.
When, in September 1973, the democratically-elected government of socialist President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, one of the darkest chapters in Chilean history began. Thousands were killed in a ruthless military crackdown.

Schaefer and Pinochet shared a hatred of communism and each found in the other something they needed: Schaefer required new political allies, while Pinochet's agents, who were versed only in the most crude forms of torture, sought to learn more sophisticated interrogation methods. Colonia Dignidad became a torture and experimentation centre.
In 1975, Luis Peebles was a young medical student and a member of a militant left-wing movement. Picked up by the Chilean security agency, he was interrogated at Colonia Dignidad.
"The method of placing the electrodes was extraordinarily meticulous. They put electrodes all over my body - under my toe nails, my hands, my ankles, my genitals, inside my penis, my anus, my mouth, my nose," he remembers.
Peebles was kept in an underground chamber at the Colony and was one of the few to get out alive. Scores of others simply disappeared. Dozens of bodies were later discovered in a mass grave.
The hunt for Schaefer
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[TD="align: center"]Winfried Hempel persuaded 120 former residents to file a lawsuit against the Chilean and German governments [Fadi Benni][/TD]
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With the community's numbers dwindling, partly as a result of its low birth rate, Schaefer's supply of young boys was running out. To counter this he opened the Colony up to the local population.

"Colonia Dignidad took advantage of the admiration that the Chileans in general had of German discipline and order, of beauty and cleanliness," explains Fernandez. "That a Chilean child was received by the Germans was seen as an aspiration, almost a privilege."
But, in 1995, one Chilean boy told his mother that Schaefer had raped him. Fearing his power and reach, she went 400km away to Santiago to report the crime.

With a new democratic government now in place, the Chilean authorities began actively investigating the conditions at Colonia Dignidad. Afraid that he would face criminal charges, Schaefer fled.

But his inner circle continued to assert its hold over the colony, and Winfried and a number of others, who were now of legal age, were sent away to prevent the authorities questioning them.

"It was incredible. I was standing on a street away from the colony, 20 years old with a psychological mentality of an eight-year-old boy," recalls Winfried. "I was in front of an automatic door that opened by itself - something I had never seen in my life."
In 2005, Hernan Fernandez and a Chilean journalist tracked Schaefer down to a small farm a few hours' drive from the capital of neighbouring Argentina. Schaefer was extradited to Chile, charged with the sexual abuse of 25 minors and sentenced to 20 years in jail.

With Schaefer behind bars, the Chilean authorities began extensive investigations at Colonia Dignidad. In 2005, they discovered a stockpile of weapons. Then there were reports that chemical and biological weapons, including Sarin gas, had been produced at The Colony.
Some 28,000 files found inside the Colony are today kept under lock and key at police intelligence headquarters, leading many to ask what the Chilean state is hiding.

"There was an arsenal of chemical weapons which still exists," says Fernandez.
Schaefer died in prison in 2010, leaving behind a legacy of shattered lives and unanswered questions.
From torture centre to tourist resort

Today, Villa Baviera's gates are open. Now a tourist resort, it features a German restaurant and a hotel. But there is no memorial for those who endured years of torture there or for those killed and buried in mass graves.

There are some, however, who refuse to allow it to erase its past. Now a lawyer, Winfried persuaded 120 former members of the Colony to file a lawsuit against the governments of Chile and Germany.

During the early days of Colonia Dignidad, Schaefer enjoyed a close relationship with the German embassy, which even provided him with a diplomatic number plate, meaning that when escapees from the Colony sought refuge there, they were returned to Schaefer.

"One thing is to be victim of a crime and another is that the criminal commits the crime in full view of authorities who should be protecting the victims," Winfried says. "[The state] played deaf, dumb and blind."
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[TD]Having been born in Colonia Dignidad is a stigma. Many times the person is the object of ridicule [and] obscene jokes.
Winfried Hempel[/TD]
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In February 2013, five of Schaefer's closest accomplices were imprisoned. But another, Hartmut Hopp, fled Chile before being sentenced, settling in the German city of Krefeld. The German constitution forbids a national from being extradited, so he lives there as a free man just a few kilometres away from Werner.

Some of Colonia Dignidad's victims also returned to Krefeld, where they now live side-by-side with their former persecutors and even attend the same church. "Some of them stick together because they say 'I forgive you'," explains Dieter.

But the past still casts a dark shadow over many. Winfried is trying to establish a relationship with his parents and occasionally visits his father who still lives in the Colony.

"I'm not going to waste time with accusations because ... regardless of a possible responsibility they may have had [for] following Schaefer, I know how hard it was for parents who tried to get close .... My father, for example, was publicly humiliated by Schaefer ... because he came to see us more often than the other parents."
The court will now decide if the claims of the 120 victims are valid. If so, it will be the first gesture of guilt on the part of the Chilean state. But while Chile is well on its way to coming to terms with its past, for the victims of Colonia Dignidad that process is just beginning. http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/alja...50788.html[/TD]
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On the trail of Paul Schaefer

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An investigative journalist explains how she tracked down the leader of a sect where members were drugged and abused.

Carolina Fuentes Last Modified: 07 Nov 2013 13:44

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Rockets and others explosives were found in Colonia Dignidad, but classified files held by the Chilean authorities prevent more information being revealed about exactly who was involved the atrocities committed at the Colony [EPA]


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[TD="class: DetailedSummary"]Chilean investigative journalist Carolina Fuentes first broke the story about Colonia Dignidad, a German sect in southern Chile led by a former Nazi army nurse, Paul Schaefer. Residents of the Colony were often drugged and the children sexually abused. But the residents were not Schaefer's only victims. Colonia Dignidad was also an experimental torture centre where political prisoners of the Pinochet regime were interrogated, tortured and their bodies sometimes disposed of.

In 1996, a lawyer named Hernan Fernandez dared to take on Schaefer, but the German sect leader fled to Argentina. That was where Fuentes went in search of him. He was eventually captured and imprisoned for the sexual abuse of minors.
The first trip to Argentina was to follow up on some clues, some streets where we could open some doors or close them, to rule out that Schaefer was there. One piece of information led to a small town south of Buenos Aires which was called Chivilcoy.
This town had very similar features to Parral, home of Colonia Dignidad, and it was a sign that the investigation was going well; they had a similar climate, an aerodrome, a place with a lot of land, lots of immigrants.
We found a van which was registered to Peter Schmidt. We knew he was one of the [people] close to Schaefer in Colonia. He had disappeared alongside Schaefer in 1996. The van was registered to an address in the centre of Chivilcoy. When we got to this address it turned out to be a motorbike rental shop, owned by an Italian man. When I started to speak to him, I disguised myself as a German tourist so he wouldn't be suspicious of me.
He said to me: "Oh, you're German, I have some German friends, Peter and Felipe."
And I swear, my heart was beating [quickly].
Then he said: "Yes they have a cheese factory, they make a lot of cheese."

From there I was nervous thinking it could be them, but he didn't give me any more clues.
We started to search the land to see if anyone knew of a German cheese factory, nobody knew anything, so we decided to stand guard outside the bike shop. One night, [Peter Schmidt arrived] in the same van we had details for. We filmed him with our camera, from a distance. We then compared the images with photos we had and decided that yes, he was Schaefer's bodyguard.
That night we followed him, in darkness, through the country roads. [It was completely] dark except for the two red tail-lights which suddenly turned into a small path. We stopped, noted the details and the next day we came back and discovered 'La Solita'. It was this ranch, which a year later we discovered was where Schaefer was holed-up. But from that day until Schaefer was arrested, we never saw Paul Schaefer. I did not know if he was dead or alive.
I didn't know if we were following a right or wrong clue and the worse thing was I didn't know if any step we took would alert him and cause him to escape.
One of our journalists infiltrated the place and met the neighbours but no one spoke of an older man. Until one of the colonials, Fritz Scheiner, who is called Felipe in Argentina, gave the understanding that an older man lived with them, an older man who had some war wounds, who was ill. These clues made us believe he was probably there.
We compared the details of who was living there and what they were doing. We shared our information with a lawyer - Hernan Fernandez - and concluded there was no reason for this group to be there if not to protect Schaefer. We went to the Argentine police to ask them to start a formal enquiry.
A symbol of impunity
We didn't go to the Chilean authorities and never planned to. In fact, all aspects of the investigation were done in a guarded fashion. It was very secretive, we feared the Chilean police or authorities would know we were carrying out this investigation. They had allowed Schaefer to be hidden for 10 years and for 40 years they had allowed Schaefer to commit all the crimes he committed in Chile.
He had a huge network of protection and I was very scared that if the Chilean police or someone in Chile found out we were looking for him they'd warn him and he'd escape again.
Paul Schaefer had become a symbol of impunity.
He committed unspeakable crimes - before the dictatorship, during the dictatorship and he continued to commit them once Chile had a democracy. Sexual abuses against Chilean children were committed when Chile had become a democracy. All of this with impunity thanks to the protection network he managed to build.
How did he build that protection network? It's something that still needs to be investigated. Many say it was by favours, others say blackmail, with the information he had on important people who were told if they didn't help him he could let their information out.
But this protection network had allowed Schaefer to commit these crimes with impunity and escape with impunity.

Drugged
A lot of us asked ourselves how was it that the colonials had, during all those years, done what Schaefer wanted them to do? How did they work for free Monday to Sunday without rest? How did they not receive money in exchange for their work? How did they allow the separation of fathers, mothers and children?
Many gave an understanding that it was because the colonials were disabled or that they had blind faith in Paul Schaefer, which was some kind of a cult. I discovered that in Colonia Dignidad there was a method of drugs, to drug the colonials to dope them and force them to work in this kind of slavery. The colonials didn't accept slavery voluntarily, they were given drugs every day, they told them it was for epilepsy, for schizophrenia or for different illnesses.
And those drugs, what they did was inhibit their free will. That way the colonials worked from sunrise to sunset without complaint; they accepted the tortures and accepted the beatings.
Many colonials told me that every morning the routine was to go to the pharmacy where they would be given their medicine. I went and I found those medicines and I asked for them to be analysed. They told me that they were medicines for epilepsy, for example. I went to the specialists and ... those specialists carried out tests on [some of the colonials] - they didn't have epilepsy. Therefore, the conclusion was that the medicines were to dope them and subdue their free will.

Then I investigated how the Colony had managed to get this amount of psycho-pharmaceutical drugs and I discovered the hospital in Talca at that time had given them all those drugs without even asking for a prescription in return, which would prove that they were for people with epilepsy. They gave them out freely.

'We let this happen'
I think it's very pernicious to be able to know the truth and for what happened in Colonia Dignidad to still be classified information.
I imagine that in those files there is sensitive information which could affect people who today have authority or are politicians ... or public figures. But in keeping that information secret, it inhibits us from knowing what really happened in Colonia Dignidad and how Schaefer managed to build his network of protection.
The longer the judge keeps these files a secret, the more our imagination grows. And even worse, the increased risk that this country throws earth over a case which was not isolated or accidental. Us, the Chileans, including the journalists, let this happen. And if we don't know the truth, it could happen again." http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/alja...62311.html
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Tales of torture

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A former member of Chile's national intelligence agency describes some of the methods used against political prisoners.

Samuel Fuenzalida Last Modified: 06 Nov 2013 19:02

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Manuel Contreras, the director of Chile's national intelligence agency, centre, regularly visited Colonia Dignidad, a German sect in southern Chile which served as an experimental torture centre for the Pinochet regime [EPA]


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[TD="class: DetailedSummary"]Chile's feared national intelligence agency, DINA, was responsible for the torture and killing of thousands of political prisoners after the country's 1973 military coup.

It established a secret interrogation centre in Colonia Dignidad, a German sect in a remote region of southern Chile, where Paul Schaefer, a former Nazi army nurse and the leader of the sect, taught the Chileans new and brutal methods of torture. The bodies of scores of his victims were later discovered buried on the grounds of the Colony.
What follows is a testimony from Samuel Fuenzalida, a former DINA agent who was charged with transporting prisoners to the Colony.

In March 1973, I had to do compulsory military service for a year. In September of that year the coup d'état took place. I was assigned to Tejas Verdes, DINA's training area.
There we were received by DINA's director, Manuel Contreras, who told us ... we had been selected from the army to join the intelligence service to fight communism.
I was 18 years old.
Then in April of 1974, I was sent to Villa Grimaldi, one of the worst interrogation centres. My superiors never justified the torture. It was just a fact. They didn't have to explain anything because I saw how they tortured a woman .... It was part of the job and I knew it. But I wasn't trained to torture, just to find information, tracking, things like that.
One day I was asked to help transfer a prisoner to Colonia Dignidad. At the time they didn't say Colonia Dignidad, they would just say "to the German place". It was winter, probably June or July of 1974 ... [when] an officer named Romes Segovia asked me to accompany him down south. Our job was to pick up a detainee who was in prison in another secret interrogation centre known as Tres Alamos and take him to the Germans.
When I went to get the prisoner ... he was physically in very bad shape. His nickname was El Loro, although his real name was Alvaro Vallejo Villagran. I recognised him because I had seen him at yet another interrogation centre ... four months earlier. I thought he was already dead, but he wasn't. He wasn't able to walk and I had to hold him from his arm on my shoulder to get him to walk and put him in the truck ....
During a stop in the journey the prisoner and I were left alone, and he said to me: "I have a feeling they're taking me to the same place where I've already been." El Loro had already been to Colonia Dignidad. He said he knew the way, the road. As we drove, he told me that he felt death was coming. And he said: "If you're Catholic, pray for me."
We left him at the entrance of Colonia Dignidad. At first I thought it was just another Chilean military barracks, because I saw guns, they were wearing uniforms of the Chilean army - with the rosette of the Chilean army, the olive green jacket. I saw heavy weaponry. But then I realised, no, this isn't the Chilean army. The ones wearing the uniforms were Germans, but with Chilean army uniforms.

We were sent inside to have dinner. Hours passed. The German women served dinner that night, at around 1 or 2am. They were waiting for us with food. We sat down at the table, we were all sitting down and suddenly the 'Professor', Paul Schaefer, appeared from another room. He appeared suddenly, I didn't notice from where, but he appeared. It was a kind of secret door .... [Then] he went through a door and came back with a dog and he made a signal to us with his hands. "Fertig," he said. It was a word that I've never forgotten. Fertig. It means it's over, it's done. And I [understood] that El Loro, the prisoner, was dead.
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[TD]People would say that they did more macabre things [at Colonia Dignidad], they would take out corneas, take out eyes.
Samuel Fuenzalida, a former DINA agent
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No one asked any questions, least of all me. And then the food came, very typical German food. It was the first time I'd had a German meal eaten like they do in Germany.
Why did they bring the prisoner all the way ... to Colonia Dignidad? Perhaps because the torture methods were more scientific, people would say that they did more macabre things, they would take out corneas, take out eyes. I never saw that but those were the rumours.
I do know that they experimented with the prisoners, to see how much pain they could withstand, with the cooperation of some Brazilians, because there were people there who spoke Portuguese.
They would inject Pentothal, or they would inject things that weren't normal. In fact, when I spoke to prisoners who had survived at least one visit, they told me the interrogation was very different to the one at Villa Grimaldi. They told me that they were far more atrocious there, that they underwent much harsher interrogations, trying to test the behaviours to see how much they could resist. They used injections, but also methods that were very cruel as well.
When my year of service was up, I left the army and the country. The experience had been traumatic and it changed my life forever.http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/alja...94171.html
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'We will always have the nightmares'

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Gudrun Mueller endured beatings, forced drug use and electric shocks at Colonia Dignidad.

Gudrun Mueller Last Modified: 06 Nov 2013 19:03

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Gudrun Mueller, right, eventually managed to escape the Colony but says she still suffers as a result of the beatings she endured there [Fadi Benny]


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[TD="class: DetailedSummary"]Gudrun Mueller joined Colonia Dignidad, a German sect in southern Chile, when she was in her 20s. Residents of the sect led by former Nazi army nurse Paul Schaefer, were regularly drugged and many of the children were sexually abused by Schaefer. The Colony also served as an experimental torture centre where opponents of the Pinochet regime were interrogated, tortured and sometimes buried, and as a haven for Nazi fugitives, who hid out there in exchange for overseeing the torture.

Here she shares her story.
I was young, in my early twenties, and wanted to do something good, and because I had already started to be religious in Germany, the idea of going to Chile to help the less fortunate appealed to me. I come from a very large family and they had all gone to Chile to join Paul Schaefer. So I went in good faith.

I ... wanted to do good deeds, which I did. All [the] time I was there I did good for other people. But I did not know [about] the crimes - the torture and murder of political prisoners - that were happening there all those years.
I always wanted the truth and I also acted and spoke out. But Schaefer could not cope with that. For example, I told him to his face that life in the Colony was worse than being in communist Europe. His face totally changed. And then again I was punished with more medication and beatings, they wanted to erase my memory of everything that had happened to me. And they did, part of it, the majority.I only noticed a few things here and there. Whenever I said that I had seen something which I thought was not right I had to take a lot of beatings, and was forced to take a lot of drugs and medicine. I received electro shocks which caused my memory losses, and this went on for years.
But I found out a lot from acquaintances and friends after 2005. Before I hardly had the chance to even communicate with the others or to even have contact. Even contact with my siblings was sparse because I also did not trust them. I did not know anymore who would go to Schaefer to denounce me. To whom could I actually tell anything? And because I had already gone through so much, whenever I opened my mouth, I was then punished, with medication, with electro shocks, with being locked up.
I was in the Colony hospital for seven years, locked in with Matron Maria Strebe in her room, and was only allowed to go to work with permission. I had to report back in when I left work, or sometimes the lady who was my superior did that for me, saying "she is now leaving, make sure that she will arrive". That's how it was all the time - I was being watched all the time. I was not a free human being, I was not even allowed to have my own thoughts. Even those you had to say out loud. And that's why Schaefer was so powerful, because everyone had to tell him everything. But he never told everything to everyone.
He always told partially that to this one, that to the other one, so that everyone only had a partial picture. That was his strength and that is why no one could take the power away from him. We did not even have a newspaper, no television, no radio, no contact. I was also not allowed to learn Spanish. My book was taken away when I arrived there - apparently to give to the students ....

I was too dangerous for him. And I would have been if I could have - I would have spoken out there too, but it just was not possible.
I only found out later that I had received electro-shocks. Other people told me that, and that is why I wanted to find out from the doctor herself, what it is and what did they do with me? Why did they give me electro-shocks? And she then admitted that they were supposed to create this loss of memory and I can notice it even now. I have a lot of memory loss, but not enough to forget everything. I remember enough to address the public with all this and finally reveal what happened in this place, what incredible things happened to the people there. That's what we want to clarify and that is why we speak out now.
Foiled escape
I tried to escape. I left the Colony three times .... Once I managed to get to the Austrian embassy but then two gentlemen came. I don't know who [they were]. I just know that I went to Ursel Schmidt the evening before and asked her to give me my passport telling her that I wanted to make a cover for the passport and that I needed the measurements and asked whether she could give it to me for one night. And on that night I ran away. How? I don't know, that was all eliminated from my memory afterwards with electroshocks.
I only know from my sister that I managed to get to the Austrian embassy, because I was actually born in Austria. Then two gentlemen came from the Colony who claimed they only wanted to talk to me for two minutes. Apparently I said: "No I am not available to talk to anymore." But then they nagged and begged so much that I gave in and went with them after all. Whether it was really just two minutes and what they did with me in that time I don't know. I apparently then said: "I will go back with them." I then ended up back in the Colony, back in the hospital. It took months, months until I could think clearly again.
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[TD]Even contact with my siblings was sparse because I also did not trust them. I did not know anymore who would go to Schaefer to denounce me. To whom could I actually tell anything? And because I had already gone through so much, whenever I opened my mouth, I was then punished, with medication, with electro-shocks, with being locked-up.
Gudrun Mueller
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I would like to mention that I was not the only one who ran away. As far as I know, there were 30 people who went to the German embassy in Santiago, who were all sent back. The leadership of the Colony would be informed and the gentlemen would be sent to collect the people and take them back. What exactly happened in detail I don't know. But that it happened, that is something I know because the hierarchy worked hand-in-hand with the embassy.
Firstly, the official residence was renovated by Ambassador Stretling, everything for free. In exchange they gave all of us German passports without us having to go to Santiago, to the consulate, to apply or sign for it. All secret. The German embassy cannot say that they did not know what was happening. They knew right from the beginning what was happening but they kept silent.
Why? Because Schaefer had everyone wrapped around his little finger. He had his nose stuck in everywhere. Police, people, all governmental departments, all of them were subservient. The more information he got, the more he was praised. They received money or parcels, food parcels, because we produced everything ourselves, and the local population was poor and were happy when they managed to get something. That is why it was actually really difficult to get away from Schaefer or to get out of the country. It just was not possible.
One day Schaefer said we should not run away, and that anyone who wanted to leave would be able to leave. They would get their papers. I was not a coward so I went up to him, three times ... and every time he told me should think about it again, and why, what don't you like and I told him what I thought. But he didn't want to let me go. The fourth time I went he told me: "Go to the kitchen, wait there." That's when I thought I will get my papers now. I was full of hope.

Instead, Kurt Schnellenkamp, the number two henchman at the Colony, came with a stick in his hand ... and ... without asking why or what did ... he just started bashing me .... I lay there like an animal and could not get up anymore. When he told me to get up and I couldn't, he hit me again, several times and then took me over his shoulder just like a sack of flour ... and took me to ... the children's house. It then took me weeks to actually be able to be seen again.
Blood on its hands
The men suffered from ill treatment and sexual abuse, but they said Eve was a woman and was to blame for the original sin, so we women had to be mistreated terribly and spat on because of our gender.

Finally, in 2005, after Schaefer was arrested I also found out everything else that had happened - the murders, the mass graves - and I told Wolfgang Mueller, with whom I had established a relationship, that I could not live there anymore, that there was too much blood on the Colony's hands. We left, although I went back a few times because my siblings and my mother were still living there.
Today we live in a retirement home in northern Germany, thanks to the German welfare state
Both my husband Wolfgang and I have serious physical problems from the beatings, the hard work 364 days out of the year. Wolfgang has suffered strokes and all kinds of neurological problems from beatings and the forced use of drugs meant for people with epilepsy or schizophrenia, which of course he never had. He is relegated to a wheelchair and looks twice his age.
And we will always have the nightmares. Even here in Germany you can't just wipe it all away. http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/alja...90507.html
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'Living in hell'

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A former resident of the Colony describes a childhood of sexual and physical abuse.

Werner Schmitke Last updated: 07 Nov 2013 13:54

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After years of sexual and physical abuse at Colonia Dignidad, Werner married fellow resident Katarina [Fadi Benny]


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[TD="class: DetailedSummary"]Werner Schmitke moved to Colonia Dignidad when he was two years old. He was separated from his family and sexually and physically abused for many years. After Paul Schaefer, the sect's leader, was imprisoned for abusing minors, Werner married Katarina, a Chilean woman from Colonia Dignidad. Together, they left Chile and moved to Germany, where they now struggle to make a living and to adjust to life beyond the confines of the Colony.
I arrived with a group of Germans, with my family, in 1962 .... My mother was also there, but then they separated me from her. I was two years old ....
I lived like a child, but we lived in groups of children, separated from the family. I did not know who my siblings were .... There was a woman whom we called Group Aunt, and she brought us up under [Paul] Schaefer's system.

When I was six or seven years old, I met Schaefer for the first time .... We always knew that he was the boss of everything, although we had never had direct contact. But one day he called me to his house, to his room. That was the first time that I had to meet him.
It was something very awful for me, something I can never forget because I was afraid and he took me. I can't call it affection or love, but since I had no father or mother, because I never saw them ... he took on the role of a father for me.
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[TD="align: center"]Werner, centre, grew up isolated from his family but pictures like this were used as propaganda tools by the Colony [Al Jazeera][/TD]
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He came close to me. He was in bed, and in the bed next to his was another boy .... There was always someone with him and they were always boys. That boy in the bed was older than me, I think I was about seven. Schaefer embraced me and threw me on the bed, he spoke very softly to me, he caressed me like a father who loves his child. So I thought nothing odd. But for me he was a stranger, so I was very embarrassed.
Then something that shocked me happened. He pulled my arm, he pulled me further down and finally I could feel something that he wanted that I did not want to do. He pulled me with force, and as a child, I could not oppose him ....
That was it the first time. I left very upset. I felt not fear but a feeling of rejection. I didn't want anything to do with him. I just wanted to leave ....
After that first encounter, some time passed. Nothing more happened for a few months. As I said, there was a system of groups .... When the group was more or less eight years old, it was taken from the Kinder house and sent to live somewhere else. The boys were placed in Schaefer's hands. The girls with the Group Aunt. At this age he would always take one or two boys, and take them for their 'education'. I remember when it was my turn too. As a child, you grow up knowing only one man is in command. You see that everyone does what he says. He is a god.
He preached the word of God too. He always used it. He approached me and took me to his house .... And I remember that I always heard that he took other boys there, so I thought well, it is my turn. One night he began asking me questions. They were about things that happened between the boys and the girls when we played, things that I now know were normal but at the time, what can I say? He said the children had done something sexual, that the devil was inside them, and that we had to free the children of evil with a hard hand .... And I thought, what evil have we committed? I was afraid. He began to take advantage of that fear .... Because of the fear I felt, I did everything he wanted. That's when I began to live in hell, that's when it began .... What happened after that was much worse.
Even though we weren't present we knew other children had the same experience. We knew that it had to be that way .... I never thought about it being wrong, because I thought that since he was my father he had to do that .... It was very strange, because I was very confused. [It] made me angry; I didn't want that, I didn't like it. But I could not understand it. On the one hand he said sex was wrong, but he said he could do it.
A torture camp
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[TD]The fear began, our hearts began thumping .... Suddenly, we heard a scream of another boy, a strong scream. Then I found out why. It was my turn with an electric current. It was brought from Germany, that thing they use for prodding cattle.
Wermer Schmitke
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That time at the Noikra is the most cruel experience that one can ever live. It still haunts me all day. I don't know how I could have survived it, but I think I was luckier than others. The time we spent there was worse than hell ....

I can tell you how it began. They took us from the group, they made a smaller group of 15 or 17 boys and they took us to the Noikra. The Noikra was a building built just for that, as I found out. It was built in a big rush, we all had to work in building that house, and as children we did not know what was going to happen there .... We were taken out at night, walking for about a kilometre .... We were afraid. We were left in the hands of some men whom, as we were to discover, were very cruel ....
There was always a person who accompanied us, who controlled us constantly. We could not go more than three metres away from him, day and night, at work, at school, everywhere. For about 10 years, we were monitored by that person. But that night that person handed us over to someone else and left ....
There was a very large room, and each one of us had to lie in a bed .... Between each bed there was a kind of wall or divider. And in the middle of the room there was a very, very bright lamp .... The men were in the centre, so that they could see each of us, although we could not see who was there. The beds had only a very thin sheet, and there was gas heating. To this day I cannot stand that smell of heating gas ....

They gave us bees wax to put in our ears as we lay in bed. Then they covered our eyes with a towel, our hands by the sides of our legs, like lying in a box. Then a few minutes later another person came in. I remember him very well .... He still lives in the Colony. He lowered our pants and left us naked .... The fear began, our hearts began thumping .... Suddenly, even though we had the wax in our ears, we heard a scream of another boy, a strong scream. Then I found out why. It was my turn with an electric current. It was brought from Germany, that thing they use for prodding cattle. It was very strong. They shocked us in the soft parts of the body, the head and then the testicles. When you screamed, immediately they would take you out. If you couldn't resist, if you screamed, they would take you out. And, as we found, it was better to resist because if you didn't even more cruel things happened to you.
There was another room ... where there was a bathtub and toilets. I remember another person was there, I know his name but he is dead now, he was in charge. You had to be naked and he'd put you in the bathtub with freezing water. Freezing water, in winter. Your head would be put underwater, and you'd feel a kind of shock, sure that you would not survive.
I was about 10 or 11 years old. It was the years before the military coup, between 1970 and 1973. We had no sense of time, none. There was no time. [It lasted] maybe a year, maybe two years .... We never spoke of this among ourselves, because the system was so strict that it was forbidden for one child to speak to another. If they caught you speaking we were punished ....
When it was over, about 10 years later when I was around 19, I approached Schaefer when he was alone, when he seemed to be in a good mood. I thought now I can ask him that question that doesn't let me rest. So I asked him why they had done those things to us .... His expression changed and he said: "Do you want us to do that to you again?" That was it.
Forgiveness
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I can forgive, although it is hard to forgive when they don't ask for forgiveness .... They don't realise the harm they have done to a child who has to live all his life with this. This has consequences - to this very day. It has destroyed me. It has destroyed my body and also my soul.
The worst part is the psychological part. It never ends .... Even now, I find myself in the Colony, with everyone chasing me, to beat me, because it happened so many times to me, more than a thousand times. There was a time when they beat me every single day, to the point that I could not feel anything anymore in my body ....
After Schaefer fled to Argentina, the system remained. What changed was that now we could get married .... I could not understand how for years they had persecuted me for this and now everything was the opposite. It was a very tough time for me. I cried a lot and for weeks I went alone to the countryside to cry.
I could not understand the world. It was all mixed up .... After a while I had an experience when I went with a group of four men and two or three other Chileans to the mountains to look for animals .... I liked the mountains and animals a lot. I did not want to know anything more about humans. I liked that world. And during that time we climbed one night up to the top of the mountain and I looked for a place to sleep. I found a place and I couldn't sleep. I began to speak to God. It was not my intention. But I felt so close to God, up there in the mountain. It was so beautiful up there, there were no people, no guilt, no evil. It's impossible to explain, but it was very powerful and I felt God up there. And I cried as I told him all my problems. And I think that changed me. That day I realised that there was a God that was very different from the one they had taught us about.
Another world
My wife is also from the Colony. She is Chilean .... After a short time of being married, we decided to leave. We couldn't stand it anymore. We thought it would change. We talked to the people there, saying that together we should all change things. But nothing happened. It remained the same ....

I had an offer to work with a Chilean in Pucon, it was for just a short time. They had heard in the family restaurant that the Germans worked very well and could do everything. But they didn't know us, didn't know that we were like soldiers, that we had never finished school - we knew nothing really. One had to know the cash register, have knowledge of maths, all that. We didn't have that, so naturally that job didn't work out .... I also asked for some money from the former Colony; they had the obligation to help us.

But after a year, I met a friend ... from the Colony, she told me we should move to Germany .... I immediately got in touch with the German embassy and asked them to help me leave ....
[Germany] was like going to another world. It was as though we had lived behind the moon, knowing nothing, and you suddenly are faced with reality. For me it was like plunging off the deep end .... I had a lot of problems but I also found lots of people who helped me. Yet the truth is that I realise that a person who comes from Colonia Dignidad cannot survive on the outside.
I always had a dream, as a child in the Colony, that with my own hands and labour I could earn a living and live with my family. The normal things: a house, a car, not much but enough, a garden maybe .... But not even that is possible here in Germany.
I thought it would be easier here, but if you don't have a degree .... I worked for 20 years in carpentry and I can do many things. But I don't have official training for that, and if you don't have papers, here in Germany things are very strict. You can only get a job as an assistant, doing the most lowly jobs. And you don't make much money .... You also need a lot of effort to adjust to this life, so different from the one we knew. I am too old to change myself .... [But] I have a purpose to my life: my children. http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/alja...55329.html
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'Chile's control systems failed'

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A police officer who investigated Paul Schaefer explains how the sect leader was protected by an influential network.

[FONT=Arial][B][url=http://www.aljazeera.com/profile/luis-hernandez.html]Luis He...