Olga Weisfeiler

E-mail: olga@weisfeiler.com

Fax: (775) 418-1990

USA

March 28, 2001

The Honorable

President Ricardo Lagos
Fax: 562-690-4020
e-mail: internet@presidencia.cl

Mr. President,

With this letter I would like to use the opportunity to raise the issue of the existence in Chile of the Villa Baviera widely known as the Colonia Dignidad.

My name is Olga Weisfeiler. My brother Boris Weisfeiler is the only American who disappeared in Chile under suspicious circumstances during the rule of General Augusto Pinochet. My brother disappeared while hiking in Andes in January 5, 1985. Ten days later his backpack was found on the riverbank of the Nuble River. After a short official investigation, Boris was presumed drowned and the case was closed soon after. In the Chilean press of those years there had been some speculation that Boris Weisfeiler was still alive and was kept captive in the Colonia Dignidad, a German-speaking settlement with rumored Nazi connections.

The declassified by the U.S. Department of State official documents reviled that the U.S. embassy in Chile admitted receiving numerous officials and unofficial reports suggested that Weisfeiler was or is being held in the Colonia Dignidad. In 1987 the informant, a former soldier, provided information to the U.S. Embassy that Boris Weisfeiler was arrested by military patrol, savagely interrogated, brought to Colonia Dignidad, was accused of being a Russian or a Jewish spy, brutally tortured, and was kept there in animal-like condition. The similar information was provided in an anonymous letter received by the U.S. Embassy in October of 1997, but the letter claimed that my brother was shot and killed inside the Colonia Dignidad. However, there remains some possibility that my brother is still alive and is living as the prisoner inside the Colonia Dignidad [more at <http://weisfeiler.com/boris>].

The judicial investigation of my brother's disappearance in Chile came to the point that we need a full and unrestricted access and searches of the territory of the Villa Baviera.

I urge you to look into the issue, consider immediately the closure of the Villa Baviera and stop gross human rights abuse. By doing this you will help to find truth and justice in Chile for my family, for people who reside there and those loved ones disappeared there.

I appreciate your attention to this matter.

Sincerely yours,

Olga Weisfeiler

Cc: Mr. Hernán Alvarez, president of the Supreme Justice Court, via e-mail

>Interior Minister José Miguel Insulza. Via fax

>Alejandro Salinas, Asesor de Derechos Humanos, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores. Via fax

>Hernán Fernández, abogado, via e-mail.