Groups of relatives of detained detainees from Tal Parral arrived this morning to the German embassy to express their rejection of the European country’s failure to justice which closed the investigation against one of the chief leaders of Colonia Dignidad, Dr. Hartmut Hopp.
Through an open letter, entitled “Enough impunity”, the groups noted that “Hopp has been only one of a series of fugitives from Chilean justice such as Hans-Jergen Riesland, Albert Schreiber, Reinhard Doring – just by nameing a few victims of Dignity Colony”.
It should be noted that the German Justice, last September, refused to execute the Chilean judgment against Hopp
complicity with sexual abuse.
“Last January, he filed the investigation against Reinhard Doring. And now he’s put the icing on the cake of impunity by filing the German investigations against the criminal Hartmut Hopp and thereby closing the last chance to do some justice. With this outrageous and outrageous capitulation to the history of crimes against humanity in Colonia Dignidad, Germany perpetuates impunity and reiterates its invitation to the criminals of Colonia Dignidad to live a quiet old age in Germany – without being “disturbed “Justice – and in many cases
including welfare payments,” they said.
The groups referred to the Chilean government accusing it of allowing “the escape of these criminals despite having orders of roots”. They claim that the Executive “has not put lawyers to present himself in these cases showing his open disinterest and, worse, since he took over as Minister of Justice and Human Rights the former member of the protection network of Colonia Dignidad, Hernán Larraín Fernández, all initiatives aimed at advancing the clarification of the crimes of Colonia Dignidad are stalled.”
“The attitude of the Ministry of Justice and the Undersecretariat of HRD has been to block and delay all political and judicial incisiveness in the hope of silencing the issue so as not to “harm” Mr Larraín and to expose his role as an accomplice to the illicit association Colonia D in the past,” they ruled.
Faced with Germany’s initiative of an aid fund for some victims of the enclave, the groups find that, at the level of the specific facts, “the results have been null and void”.
For this reason, they demand to set up a Truth Commission on the crimes of Colonia Dignidad, an idea that “was not heard” on previous occasions. Now, with Hopp’s overseeing, the door is closed to possible cooperation between German and Chilean justice in a definitive manner. “On the Chilean side, the only investigation that remains open is our cause for illegal burial and exhumation carried by Minister Carroza,” they add.
Finally, they expressed their support for the victims of Colonia Dignidad “with their legitimate demands, including the former born Chilean children in the enclave who since 2013 are waiting for payment of their compensation fixed by the Supreme Court”. And they demanded that the Chilean State buy the land that adjoins places where their relatives were buried and exhumed, to pay compensation to the victims and to ensure that these places where graves are located can also be expertly in the future.
As a final point, they also demanded that the tourism of the companies of Colonia Dignidad be stopped and that a Memory Site be installed on the site that is a place of remembrance and homage where the criminal history of the place is told.
Hartmut Hopp, 74, is a former corporal of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and served as a doctor in Colonia Dignidad, a site where adults and children were abused, and which was used as a detention and torture centre during Pinochet’s dictatorship.
