The United Nations (UN) released information regarding weddings and other festivities taking place in an old community located in Chile. This site was established by a former Nazi military officer and was the scene of serious human rights violations during the period of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.
United Nations experts indicated that these celebrations occurred in Villa Bavieta, which is part of the former Dignity Colony complex. This colony was founded in 1961 by Paul Schäfer, a former Nazi military officer.
In a joint statement, UN experts expressed their dismay upon learning that events were happening in a location where grave human rights violations occurred and whose expropriation was already planned. They also issued a warning about the preparation of similar activities in the coming weeks.
Among the specialists involved were the Special Rapporteur on Torture, Pau Pérez-Sales, and members of the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances. These professionals requested that Chilean authorities take the necessary measures to ensure the preservation of any evidence that might still exist on the premises.
The Dignity Colony, which was established by German immigrants, collaborated with the Chilean Armed Forces to carry out arbitrary detentions, acts of torture, sexual abuse, summary executions, and enforced disappearances, as recorded by the signatories of the statement.
The remains of the victims were buried, exhumed, and incinerated within the site itself, with it estimated that more than one hundred people may have been victims of enforced disappearance.
The experts emphasized that this is a place where some of the most serious human rights violations in the history of Chile were committed, and it should not be treated merely as a tourist or leisure spot.
Paul Schäfer had already been accused of pedophilia in Germany before fleeing to Chile and founding the Dignity Colony, where other German colonists and Chilean citizens resided. After leaving Chile, the German was detained and imprisoned in Argentina in 2005, dying in prison in 2010.
The authoritarian military regime, under the leadership of Augusto Pinochet, governed Chile for a period of 17 years, from September 11, 1973, to March 11, 1990.