Enlarge image
Buildings on the site of the former Colonia Dignidad
Photo: Mario Ruiz / dpa
The German cult settlement Colonia Dignidad in Chile was a scene of torture and abuse.
Victims of the sect should actually be compensated financially.
But even more than ten years after the death of the German sect leader Paul Schäfer, the Chilean victims are still waiting for the money.
Some of them are now calling for help from the federal government.
Eight men who were sexually abused by Schäfer in the 1990s have turned to the federal government with a fire letter. In it they call on Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) to lobby the Chilean government and the companies of today's Villa Baviera on the site of the former sect settlement for the overdue payment of compensation.
Chile's Supreme Court had awarded the victims compensation payments equivalent to around 1.25 million euros. "These payments have not been made to this day," says the letter to the Foreign Office. The payments were to be made by companies belonging to Villa Baviera, for which the seized assets of the companies were released again. However, companies repeatedly appealed to delay payments.
Germany has already made aid payments of 7,000 euros to German and Chilean victims of the Colonia Dignidad. The court-ordered compensation payments to the Chileans, who came to Colonia Dignidad for medical treatment as children and were abused there, have not yet been paid. "So far, the Federal Republic has not been doing what it ought to be doing," says victim lawyer Hernán Fernandez in a documentary on ARD. "Germany owes it to the victims that they are compensated."
The lay preacher Paul Schäfer and his followers moved from Germany to Chile in the early 1960s and founded the Colonia Dignidad (Colony of Dignity) at the foot of the Andes.
For decades he let the sect members work there for no wages, tore families apart and molested children.
During the military dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet, opponents of the regime were also tortured and murdered on the huge area.
asc / dpa