Once its home to worship, the Chilean tourist village is chasing torture and abuse of children

With sloping roofs with red height, hipped meadows and a store that sells local ginger biscuit, Villa Bavira looks like a strange German village, located in the central Chile hills.

But it has a dark past.

She was known as Colonia Dignidad, was home to a secret religious community founded by a manipulation and misfortune leader with Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.

Paul Chevir, who established the colony in 1961, imposed a system of harsh penalties and humiliation on the Germans who live there.

They were separated from their parents and forced to work from a young age.

Several coffee also offended many children.

After General Pinochet led a coup in 1973, the opponents of his military regime were transferred to Cologne Digenidad to be tortured in dark lower floors.

Many of these political prisoners have not been seen again.

Chevir died in prison in 2010, but some German population remained and turned the former colony into a tourist destination, with a restaurant, hotel, cabin for renting and even boat pool.

Now, the Chilean government will issue some of its territory to celebrate Pinocht victims there. But the plans have divided opinions.

Through Chile, more than 3,000 people were killed and more than 40,000 people were exposed to the Pinochet system, which was in power until 1990.

Luis Evangelista Aguio was one of those who disappeared by force.

His sister, Anna Agwao, is sitting on fire in her home in Baral, the closest city to Cologne Digenidad.

“Louis was calm, he liked to swim. He wanted to create a more just world,” she said.

Mr. Agwao worked as an inspector of the school, was a member of the Teachers Syndicate, and was active in the Socialist Party.

On September 12, 1973, one day after the overthrow of the socialist president, Chile, Salvador Allandi, Salvador Al -Lindi, to the house of Mr. Agowio.

Two days later, he was sent to the local prison, but on September 26, 1973, the police arrived and fled to a car. His family did not see him again.

Anna Agwiu says a local farmer came to her home to say he saw her brother in the German colony.

She said: “My mother and my father went to Cologne Digenidad, but she was not allowed to enter.”

“They went everywhere they were looking for, at police stations, in the courts, but they were unable to get information. My father died because of sadness because he was not able to help him. My 96 -year -old mother believes that she could hear him calling” Mama, and comes to me. “

Mr. Agwao was one of 27 people from Paral, who was believed to have been killed in Cologne Digenidad, according to the continuous judicial investigation that the Chilean government ordered.

The total number of people killed here is unknown, but there is evidence that this is the final destination for many opponents of the Pinushian system, including Chilean Congress member Carlos Lorca and many other leaders of the Socialist Party.

The Chilean Ministry of Justice says that investigations indicate that hundreds of political detainees have been brought here.

Ana Auguayo supports the government’s plan to create a memory site there.

“It was a place for horror and horrific crimes. It should not be a place for tourists to shop or eat in a restaurant.

But the government confiscation plans have divided the opinion in Villa Bavira, where less than 100 adults live.

Dorothy Monch was born in 1977 in Cologne Digenidad.

“We lived in one immigrant like barracks.”

“From an early age, we had to work, clean dishes for the entire society and collect firewood.”

The government plans to issue 117 hectares from 4,829 hectares, including the buildings where torture occurred, and the sites where the bodies of the victims were extracted, then burned and deposited.

MS Munk does not agree with confiscation plans because it includes the village center, which includes population homes and joint companies including a restaurant, hotel, bakery, islands and dairy products.

“We have lived under a fearful system, we are victims as well. We are rebuilding our lives and this will make us victims again. Perhaps people at my life can determine their location, but for the oldest population, it will be destroyed.”

Erika Taymam arrived in Cologne Digenidad from Germany in 1962, who is two years old.

She separated from her parents, remembering crying at night to her mother.

Like many other people from the colony, she says she got electric shocks as a child.

It also opposes confiscation plans and wants to stay in the same place. “I want to be with people who understand what I went through.”

The Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Jaime Gagardo Falcon, told the government that the government made a decision accompanied by the region where the main buildings of the previous drums are concentrated.

“These were sites for political detention, torture, monitoring and training for state agents to commit crimes against humanity.”

The confiscation decree was published in July. He said that during the next few months, the state will determine the value of the exported assets.

He wrote seventy -three residents and former residents of Villa Bavira to the Chilean President, expressing their concern about the confiscation plans and requesting participation in discussions on this topic.

They rented a public relations company to deal with their relations with the media and the representative of this company accompanied the BBC on its visit to the site.

Separately, the BBC spoke to many other populations and colonia Dignidad residents who support a memorial site.

George Klopp lived in Cologne Digenidad from 1962 – when he arrived from Germany with his parents between the ages of two years – until 2010.

Like many boys in Colonia Digenidad, he says he got electric shocks, and he was forced to take mental and sexual drugs by Chevir.

“Every night I was transferred to a building, I was abstract, and they were putting a black towel on my face and the electric shocks were applied, here, here, here,” referring to its genitals, throat, feet and under his arms.

“I think we must have a memorial because a lot of cruelty happened here for both the Germans and the Chilean. I cannot believe that there is now a restaurant where many tears of children, urine and blood flow.”

Mr. Klaube is part of legal action – with the support of the former and current Colonia Dignidan Association – which claims that Villa Baviver leaders do not share the income of the previous colony fairly.

They want the government to ensure confiscation, compensation is distributed to all of the former population and residents.

Among the other victims who support the plans of confiscation of former political prisoners who were tortured in Cologne Digenidad, small farmers who were expelled from their lands when a German colony and Chilean who lived locally and were subjected to sexual abuse were created as children by Chevir.

Chevir was arrested in 2005 and in 2006 he was convicted of abuse 25 sexual children, including five rape charges. He also convicted many of his partners.

Justice Minister Gagardo says it is important to ensure that the horrors that occurred here are unforgettable.

“Rightly crimes have been committed here. So far it was private.