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someone in these woods human remains to sit to be buried on to the ground. torture victims who died at the hands of the german sicked henchmen of chile's dictator augusto pinochet now witnesses to the crimes of breaking decades of signings well so often that i knew that this was the most dangerous moment of my life and. to this day the families of the victims are struggling to find out what happened to their loved ones. they want all i want to know is where i love them and what happened to you. i can't financially but you know what i want to have one of the 3 mostly because we had to pressure the 2nd leaders who were still alive in order to get enough information we will know by the game.

but the leaders of colonia dignidad have remain stubbornly taciturn. and this is the system is driving it works on all levels down to the smallest detail. today the place where people cruelly mistreated has become a site for jovial gatherings justice and remembrance up to now any attempts at dealing with the past have been obstructed isn't that hard it's a regime of injustice that still manages the assets it unlawfully amassed with the blood clears and slave labor of others. illegal. actually an investigation team is on its way to the compound of the former sect could only dignidad. on the way it passes the colonies parochial schools

and a front gate. to the sole interest of this vast. settlement is still guarded just as it used to be. nowadays and the sign reads welcome to believe very a village. these days colonia dignidad has become a business for agriculture in tunis and. the offices drive deep into the heart of this state. they're looking for mass graves. the ground has been torn up in many places in the tireless search for the dead bodies hastily buried he is some 40 years ago where exactly no one can say or want. they've taken samples of the soul from various spots it's a never ending task. of world of which are lions have to face our past but this

here could be one of its darkest chapters it's our duty to shed light on it and show it to the world and. so far have had little success in this search for the victims of the sect as well as chile's military regime. change dictator augusto pinochet had his left wing political opponents are arrested on mass at the beginning of the 1970s. they were rounded up in places like this stadium in the capital santiago. pinochet had many prisoners tortured and murdered in the cellars of colonia dignidad out would lay the so-called colony of dignity appeared quite pious but in reality it was a strictly guarded sect with corporal punishment slave labor and torture. led by the pedophile such founder paul shaffer and his closest allies colonia dignidad would closely with a dictator. the very impala titian franz use of strauss was said to have been

a friend of the set of the german embassy and she was aware of the crimes being committed but still send any who escaped back to the sect it wasn't until decades later in 2016 the germany admitted it's killed. if you are in there for years german diplomats at best turned a blind eye as vic shouts they did far too little to protect their fellow citizens in this colony is a good time. post shafik still lives on the grounds of connally's dignidad he used to be kept here as a slave brutally mistreated and beaten by fellow germans leading the sect i think there were some bizarre times they'd even beat me unconscious i was so bloody my

clothes stuck to my skin i couldn't sit for weeks i had to lean on my hands and slowly ease myself into a chair. it was enough to drive anyone mad thought on the issue. post was forced to work 7 days a week there was no regular school for him to attend lessons was staged for recordings so the sex could project a picture perfect community to the outside world just like the many festivities held to impress visitors and. the hellish truth behind this shiny vinnie a still haunts horse. and he lives here in the grounds because he doesn't know where else to turn he occupies a tiny room with his wife in 2 children despite years of therapy decades of torture have left the physical and emotional months. sometimes my blood pressure shoots up to 180 and i just can't work anymore i

simply can't afford to carry on like this i got from the german embassy knew to people like o'shea frequent truck tina's lives and they did nothing to put an end to it cost is furious for long and hard to compensation but the state was slow to respond that's what it's germany's responsibility to make up for 3035 years of the rule to towards children and minors some are just 8 years old but this is a disgrace that mars the german state that if they have to pay for what they've done. only in 2020 digimon you stop paying out financial support to victims like cost a $1.00 off some captain $10000.00 euros. you know you're the judge of money across the heads the search for mass graves. during his investigations he stumbled upon this on he has

a sturdy sela. cross has evaluated witness statements and his certain there was a secret prison below this concrete sign up. to. this is where they brought political prisoners workers and for 1st they were interrogated then tortured after that many were executed. with up. is now focused on locating the bodies in the woods he's following in your late. yellow when. there are still places where more mass graves could be located. and. that's what a new witness has told us on the oil we haven't found anything yet but we expect to uncover human remains there up on mentalist. bodies. from the 1970 s. somewhere in the middle of nowhere the new witness. he has turned to the public to

speak openly about the unspeakable horror he experienced in the saying. what he saw he had 1st testified to the investigating judge years ago. at the end of the 1970 s. he was ordered by schaefer the head of the sex to help cremate the bodies they dug up. yesterday i was there when the 1st truck arrived and left. it was full of remains. my. charcoal. bits of bone all mixed together. with. it had been painstakingly scraped up from the ground and to leave no trace behind it. that was loaded onto the truck. i know the truck drove through a ravine where there used to be an old windmill. there

was a ford there that stretched across the river that's where they dumped the 1st. food up the kit. after that he says all evidence was destroyed but there was one mass grave they couldn't find according to melissa the bodies lying there couldn't be removed or cremated he told the authorities where this mess craft might be as far as he can remember. the archaeologist even cussedness is in charge of searching for the remains. of human thinking that with that awful idea of the route the decades since the 1970 s. the forest has renewed itself. in all of us. but its basic structure has stayed the same if you were fully out of the. bottom of

it and we feel moment that we cleared the ground very thoroughly and came across a layer of burnt earth that was much finer than we had expected you might and we mean were given a little to put on one count. and yet this search for 30 mass graves remains unsuccessful this sect was good at covering its tracks. from went to building we thought we would find some remains of the corpses no you know not but the sect and the military must have been able to operate completely under stir no not in the only seemingly they were virtually invisible that told him so and schaefer the sect leader made sure that no ordinary sect member was allowed to see the mass graves but if you let me walk in while they were burning the corpses they claimed that there was a controlled fire in the forest. the melissa had to help with the cremations it's still pines him today. for uncharted and so i was forced to decide

who's on me i could have stood up and said i wouldn't do it. but i knew that this was the most dangerous moment of my life and. i only had a few moments to make up my mind. whether to continue or not we just i don't know who and if. more he was afraid of being punished or even killed himself. after melissa statement customers doubled down on his efforts to want cover the traces of the mass graves. but he has had to contend with a shortage of staff money and expertise. in order to make some real progress we have to take samples of the charred ground

along with other extensive soil samples and send them over to germany you know their forensic specialists could check the samples for traces of d.n.a. that would tell us if people were buried there and who they might have been. that's exactly what the loved ones of the torture victims left behind a fighting for. once here they travel to the grounds of the 6 to mourn. they still don't know what happened to their brothers and sisters this sons and daughters. i cannot bear the thought that their family may have been tossed into an unmarked grave somewhere out there. nor can they bear the deafening silence of so many other witnesses who couldn't find the courage philomena citied truth seekers like me say it is fernando is a disappointed here the owner when you look at the name. all i have this one

a photo of you my son and the question remains where are you what happened to you i can't find you i've searched for you far and wide and i still haven't found a trace of well. at least the crimes are slowly being dealt with from a historical perspective. today i'm a sadist receives a special visit to research is the helping conduct a study for the friday université scene berlin they want to learn everything they can about maceda says disappeared son luis. i'm happy i was able to bear witness to remember the past. but i want today's youth to understand that atrocities like this must never be allowed to happen again

. let's say he still finds it difficult to revisit the past. her son was disappeared 47 years ago ever since she has been fighting for closure she wants clarity on what happened her last till pains her every day. she wants to share everything she knows she talks about how the police took her boy away simply for being a member of a communist student organization whose stories will be added to an oral history archive with audio and video recordings that serve as a collective memory. they came into our house to grab my son luis an entire patrol of about 50 armed police officers they just took him away. job. after researchers found a clue busy. some of the colonia dignidad files are still kept in the national

archives are chilling they include. a filing cabinet with about 25000 index cards. you know fredricka going to know it contains notes taken during interrogation isn't it well gee this only happened once in chile is history so it proves that political prisoners were held on a german combat tours of. the sets head of information also compiled an index card on a saint is the son luis that means they probably helped him prisoner. the . most likely he was also tortured in the 6 underground passageways. now maceda says relatives have set up a memorial plaque here is the 1st official memorial on those grounds. and the military personnel are like use the cell of their interrogations more often than not they ended in torture and death. only after many years with families

finally permitted to put up a plan to remember their relatives crim friends. of all the former 6 members who still live here have already begun preparations for a larger memorial site. the torch this summer has been cleared out. there making room for a museum or a place of remembrance. a few kilometers away in the small city of paralysis families of the victims are fighting to see more commitment from chile and germany's governments they can't accept how long the search for their loved ones is taking. misael is fernandez is also part of the campaign despite her 90 years of age if you're seeing another our relatives are buried out there somewhere it's our duty to look for them. my mother started searching for my disappeared brother and i swore to her that i would carry

on her search. me no. pain will only end once we find the remains of our family members and if we only find one body the pain we feel today will still be a little less. in a holy man in germany has to help it to is to blame. a german chilean joint task force has been put together but the only been able to make a little headway. that's because members of the colonia dignidad have been standing in their way. under the pinochet dictatorship the sect had amassed great wealth farming and timber businesses huge forests and estates and and even a gold mine. to set leaders turned over millions in profits.

for years the sect was run as a charity then in 1909 the small syndicate have set traders transferred all assets to a holding group with several stock corporations. it was a complicated web of companies with the sole purpose of maintaining operative and financial control. the colony was renamed via vieira the very a village in the holding group distributed a handful of shares to some of its former slaves. in this letter from 1998 pushing for all of his leadership to make sure that no victims quote would have a right to payments or compensation for decades. this was a measure against disloyalty and dissidents as he put it. is one such so called decided she was born into the sect to this day she into her husband suffer under the cruelty of over 40 years of forced labor with 0

compensation for damaged goods a good back then i just thought it was normal nobody ever explained anything to me when handed any work contracts so we couldn't ask the right questions or form our own ideas. the children were all inquisitive and bright but the brightest minds were kept sedated with drugs. when she examines the shares all sight and feels is frustration she was handed $51.00 in total in some day amount to about $3000.00 euros this bill is no use to me at all it's just a piece of paper i don't have any say in the matter no voting rights is just a slip of paper. cost shafik was also handed a pittance from his tormentors to make ends meet and family somewhat afloat he works as a beekeeper. i

turned 61 seriously we don't know how we'll get by. it meshed. this well i want everyone to know how schaefer deliberately created a project. designed to keep us all excluded from any of the profits and. such as the share an enormous wealth stick to the cumulated or a small plot of land from the sprawling a states. or the very least a payout from. in. all the years we've been shareholders we were always told this belongs to all of us and we believed it because we've never received a single payout. isn't a normal holding company shareholders buy and sell for profit. this is a completely different scheme and that's the sectors left many victims like caused

in dollars in 3 handed after 40 years of cruelty and slave labor they are bitterly poor meanwhile the sick leaders have moved up to managing to rake this in their firm with generous salaries and plenty of clout in the business. and none finance has been investigating the sex crimes for years the way things are now he says it's a disgrace. it's an ongoing injustice people were tortured and murdered here children were abused you can't turn a place like that into a tourist resort but politicians have remained complicit and the public prosecution has no active role in investigating the crimes committed here so you. can treat hempel lives in chile's capital center he was also born into the senate today he works as a lawyer and is very outspoken against the new management it would be the juicy he

says to compensate victims like host and doris for a lifetime a slave labor. it's a cartel of silence. and even today the colonies leadership shares a mafioso like oath of silence and noncompliance and there's nothing we can do about it or the companies or their victims 45 years of wages and 45 years of contributions to pension payments to this day they have not paid out a single cent and. the bulk of the shares went to the 6 leaders in the 1990 s. confidence of the cult leader with an appointed directors. just a few years ago the chilean investor. into the company says the shareholder he was hoping for a profitable investment. only afterwards did he realize that it was a closed corporation there's no transparency and he has no say in any decisions even though he holds 17 percent of all shares.

more outwardly this web of corporations would want you to believe that they honor inclusive participation ownership rights and democratic decision making. but in truth they're in very serious violation of any code determination regulations of. those who run the companies are also their own supervisors. he says the set set up 3 bogus firms so that the head of the board never lost control if you. simply meant to them or if you got all you have to do is change the share structure. that's it and will be that way all shareholders would have a real say in the operating companies not just the dummy companies who don't know the video had to be there in

a given day it would actually be quite easy. for the. e.c. in theory in reality the management has quietly resisted any sort of opening who are these people today it's many who remain sons of former cult leaders intrusted with carrying on the company legacy from lofty management positions. and can't currently holds the reins of the v. above you know corporation his father court was sentenced to 5 years in prison in chile for systematic abuse and forming a criminal organization. today thomas agrees that the 6 assets were distributed unfairly. and tame over on today's perspective i would say the distribution of shares was not done fairly. back when the decision was guided by inheritance norms and based on who brought in how much money and unfortunately from today's point of view that's not quite equitable

. and there are other former cult members who run parts of the business and see a need for change one of his sisters a national income is responsible for the 2 reason division she's calling for more transparency and justice for victims my wants is absolute disobedience i want to stick change the old share structure the way it's described it is now it is unfair and an equal. or. all members should be included in the winning cynical or any of the companies included in the holding should be able to generate profits that are paid out to the members and it did also died. but not all directors agree many are still fighting change. schreiber is another into the management kaja. his father was the financial director of colonia dignidad evaded chilean justice by fleeing to germany. and

europe has been responsible for the corporation's legal offense feels. the paper leaked was by a former sect member documents attempts to silence victims the witness explains that form a cult members were to exchange quote exclusive rights to their life stories and individual experiences for a plot of land. just to ensure the past atrocities would remain concealed from public view. wanted to confront hansard struggle with these accusations but he refused to be interviewed who issue a statement on the matter. some say the command structure of the full missing indeed song as does the injustice.

before they determine everything one is evil on face sell whatever they want and whenever they want to throw an error and the so called shareholders have no say in the matter mr raydon harm obviously all they care about is keeping everything for themselves homeless as there are throughout. financial benefits at the expense of the sitz forced laborers why wasn't a corporation dissolved after paul shaffer the wrist and the assets distributed fairly among former colony members in 2005 this was almost the case after the cult leader was arrested germany and chile could have at least changed the share structure but the foreign office tells us there was no legal possibility for germany to dissolve the corporation altogether instead from 2008 onwards the foreign office put forth funds for psychosocial support to remaining residents in addition to social measures money was also provided for business consultancy and

for unspecified infrastructure projects. but also the what people need to know is as of 20042005 the foreign ministry actually supported this corporate structure because they were more worried about the colony they wanted all the settlers the stand she laid so as to keep the problem out of germany. in 2004 mr and mrs melissa presented an open letter to the sect members and to jim and diplomats demanded that all assets be dissolved and distributed fairly. in anger to our. we asked them to dissolve the whole mess. and i'm finally give the people what they were promised in 1st broadwater or us into hate men and what they're entitled to vent their everything was supposed to belong to everyone and once this holding or whatever it is is dissolved to get my inch of then things can be distributed fairly rhetoric

great i'll get told. that their plate fell on deaf ears. this is done with but the understood nothing happened they like the idea but they did nothing about it so germany just looked the other way. going to exactly just like they did for all those decades thing to do it and. many people agree with billy melissa to this day they believe the german state has failed them many 6 members can't comprehend why beer and roast pool could being served to decide was systematic abuse and torture once took place without any attempt at remembrance let alone reparations was there. in 2019 the german bundestag invited doris sutton a to belin there she demanded the 6 released phones from his assets and reimburse victims like oh oh.

we completely on our own. in my family isn't it so i'm sort of us. to start whatever the foreign office has provided any financial support to the colony went straight into tourism and other things i haven't seen one cent not a single one i'm pains me to see corporations receive that kind of superman just well individuals who really deserve it own prosecutor from. the victim say that the legacy of cult leader pull shaffer still casts a dark shadow over the the sinister corporation he's left behind has meant that after a lifetime of slavery they must continue to live in poverty long after his own death in 2010. part with his will there's a way and so when freed hempel continues to fight for justice and if we

want an administration that seizes all of the colonies assets and manages them in a way that either the proceeds or the assets themselves go to the victims that is all we want for. justice. at least the hunt for mass graves has intensified after villa melissa's confession . but judge casa lacks the money and the manpower for an exhaustive excavation. and germany for years the german government shied away from dealing with the simplest part of its past. german diplomats actually maintained good relations with paul shaffer and he said in 2017 the foreign office agreed to collaborate with chile to create a commission to document the crimes committed we are told that germany had offered chile to analyze soil samples from chile in its give asian sites in german labs at

the german government's expense. so far no samples are said to have arrived. why is the investigation storing in chile. there the minister of justice and human rights a man lying is responsible for moving the investigation forwards. is also a long term supporter of the sect. in the 1990 s. he wrote about colonia dignidad we the signatories of this letter greatly appreciate the work that this association has done political scientist taylor has spent years researching the aftermath of colonia dignidad and considers the minister to be one of the chief obstacles to overcome in the past. as mine as if

it's a thought. the other and i think mr lott i mean is keen to keep this issue under wraps and out of the public eye. but this is. where this is where i would like to see a greater commitment from the foreign office and the german government that you all . are more like that on this issue would require proactive human rights policies. and the frog went to port even mentioned i don't see any in place at the moment is a moment when you see. the bottom line is the germany is polite even frightening for pressuring chile that says chile's government just fine minister a lot of rain was not available for an interview he merely informed is that chile had already spent the equivalent of around 380000 euros on excavations and that cooperation with german experts would begin as soon as possible. the doubts linger of lauren strewn intentions of dealing with the past of colonia

dignidad he was a friend of the sect for decades as documents in a chilean national archive can prove the 6 registry also contains a file on a not lot i mean it says that as a young politician law even visited colonia dignidad shortly before the coup in chile as well as shortly afterwards in 19841975. these were precisely the years in which the dictator had thousands of political opponents arrested tortured and murdered. some in the very cellars of colonia dignidad. is it possible that laurie and did not notice any of this during his 3 visits. the historian claudio salinas thinks not. from early on or non lot i mean repeatedly denied and dismissed all the accusations

leveled against colonia dignidad. although there were plenty of reports on torture and child abuse at that time. according to the state's records close with one doctor and 2 individuals one albums and 100 according to experts these were the pitiful cult leader paul shaffer his chief financial officer. and the city's doctor hartmut hope it was in part thanks to love and support that the sect was able to carry on after the pinochet dictatorship ended. it was not until the mid ninety's that the police began to investigate the 1st cases of abuse with raids on the 6 premises even then threw his weight behind the sick. units and investigators from all over the country want to search the german compound this is

without precedent and all because of one single complaint of child abuse of a man or. a human rights commission of the chilean parliament or someone in but the minister did not comply and outrage this human rights activist margarito me you know. it's a very lovely impulse of people that they should put money in it which aside you justice minister has protected the sect for many years even though he was aware of the crimes committed. in the system through a greek we have the evidence you know what's missing is the political will to carry out the prosecution is that you are the. is and it's a seat that human rights and nonfinite has also criticizes the action of those responsible. this is the most dramatic case in chief days recent history neither

the minister of justice nor the president or minister of the interior or fulfilling the duties of their office but including going to reside he has the right to demand the crimes of colonia dignidad be prosecuted calling it deserves compensation clarification and justice and so yeah there are what i see on the. vintry hempel is losing his patience with how little is being done. the visits were quite pessimistic i don't expect much from minister a lot i mean us on the contrary i think he wants to just sweep the whole thing under the raj. at the same time there is not enough money resources to conduct a proper search for the disappeared to torture victims. the relatives left behind and the officials fighting for their restitution feel abandoned. him but it wouldn't surprise me he wants a moment to. the time we demanded the excavation site be protected. it

was declared a national monument but no efforts were made to secure the dignity of. the area remained publicly accessible anyone could get him this simple. presented with a. there's no professional forensics team he had to the funds were lacking. the 1st step towards truth and justice would be to return the victims' bodies to their families the issue is to know. if cooperation with germany was more effective we would have made more progress with that but you know i will also the remaining sect leaders should be interrogated. only from us i think they know where the bodies are and could tell us where to look. he. went to ricky who want to put. that many leading members of the sect have decided to remain silent and not in

the german or the chilean justice system seem to have any interest in questioning them. and so the tourist trap remains a price we passed torres a mosque behind it did injury. really melissa is one of the few form a sect members to tell his story. does he. was the only data so we had to kind of. the way i see it i was forced to do this work i had no choice but maybe i wanted but that doesn't mean i need to keep quiet about it now because the. kind of i knew that none of the others would say anything. after i had testified i went to the estate. and i told the people there that i had just confessed.

they insisted on knowing what exactly i had told the authorities about this and you know i said everything. i'm empty now you know. i left them to connect the dots they knew what they had done. it was a secret. to this day melissa he was not part of the cult's top leadership circle struggles with the question of whether he too was one of the perpetrators. wish them to. who decides who is a perpetrator and who is a victim of them on the one hand i'm one of the perpetrators. where on the other hand i'm also a victim does the mom moved because what i had to do there was awful

and i was never given a choice. don't be told if you are i was taken by surprise in order to put on the spot shaffer hadn't told me what kind of work i'd be doing where i could couldn't it was his dr no it mom. in my unit you know. the families of the missing torture victims a quite come to mesa for his testimony of it. thanks to his courage they might eventually find within for the tips of buried. in. the going to be my when i spoke out because i felt it was my duty to lift the veil of secrecy. and give back what belongs to those or more families. good to good they deserve to know where their loved ones have gone. what do you believe

more. or less i had the courage to confess. as long as others tremaine silent to brutally conceive colonia dignidad cost shattering for many years to come. their tiny magical world and their snow proof. these world famous souvenirs were created by the pansy family in vienna. they only use the best materials for their snow globes love craftsmanship and some well kept family secrets. the world lacks. in 30 minutes w. . by

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last. faces date over the news live from the man in the u.k. sound the alarm over the new coronavirus there he and prime minister boris johnson says there's now evidence to suggest as well as more contagious. might also be deadly also on the program supporters of jail kremlin critic alexina valley take to the streets of rallies across russia that's despite police warning that downed.