LOS DESCLASIFICADOS
(This Article appeared in Spanish in the
THE
ENIGMA OF COLONIA DIGNIDAD
By PETER KORNBLUH
The discovery of a
battalion’s worth of armaments buried at Colonia Dignidad confirms that the
Pinochet regime used the furtive German enclave as a secret border base. The discovery of intelligence files as well
can be expected to shed significant light on the dark relationship between the
Chilean secret police and its CD collaborators.
All that remains now is to find where the bodies are buried.
Indeed, the most
surprising thing about the discovery of this trove of weapons and documents is
that it has taken so long to find them.
Judge Zepeda's most recent search at Colonia
Dignidad is but the latest in a series of investigations of the property over
the last five years. Until earlier this
year when the metal skeletons of two cars belonging to disappeared Chileans
were unearthed, substantive incriminating evidence had been elusive. Paul Schafer and his deputies had proved
quite adept at hiding the extensive evidence of the military and intelligence
ties between the regime and the Colonia—until now.
The arsenal of armaments
indicates that La Colonia served as a contingency military base along the
Argentine border as well as perhaps a procurer of illicit arms for the Pinochet
regime. The documentation found there
suggests that the DINA used Colonia as an intelligence facility and a place to
hide key records relating to the regime’s ongoing repression.
The documents and files
may well turn out to be some of the most important and revealing papers
relating to the operations of the Chilean secret police whose archives, like so
many victims, disappeared years ago and have yet to be located. (Rumors abound that Manuel Contreras smuggled
the DINA files out of the country in the late 1970s in order to assure that
General Pinochet would continue to protect him from prosecution.) At best, they will implicate key military
officials in human rights crimes from that era; at minimum the discovery of the
documents will put pressure on General Cheyre to finally turn over all relevant
military records that have been withheld from public scrutiny since the end of
the dictatorship.
Those who await the
results of the analysis of these records are, first and foremost, the families
of victims who were believed to have been killed at Colonia Dignidad. Among them is Boris Weisfeiler, a mathematics
professor in the
For Olga Weisfeiler,
Boris’s sister, the discovery of the archives brings with it the possibility of
discovering the fate of her brother.
Five years ago, when Judge Juan Guzman--at the time in charge of the
investigation into Weisfeiler’s disappearance--traveled to Colonia Dignidad, a
file folder marked “Boris Weisfeiler” was found in an office. But the file was empty, except for a few
newspaper clips. In an interview with Siete this week, Olga Weisfeiler said
she hoped the missing contents of that file would now be found. “I hope we all
will learn a lot soon about our loved ones and about the crimes committed by
the Colonia and the Chilean secret police,” she noted. “Now it is just a matter of time.”
To her credit, Ms.
Weisfeiler has tenaciously sought the declassification of
Due to Olga Weisfeiler’s
persistent pressure on the
But Chilean authorities
may well want to consider actually asking the FBI for a far more important
technical contribution: satellite photography of the 37,000 hectares that make
up the Colonia property. The
Now
that it is clear that cars and guns were secretly interred at Villa