INDH Warns Against Stalling Expropriation of Former Colonia Dignidad, Threatening Truth, Justice, and Reparations

Original article: INDH advierte que no avanzar en expropiación de ex Colonia Dignidad debilita verdad, justicia y reparación

The National Human Rights Institute (INDH) has raised concerns over the decision by President José Antonio Kast’s government to halt the expropriation process of the former Colonia Dignidad, asserting that this move undermines truth, justice, and reparations for the violations and crimes committed at this site during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.

“We will reverse the expropriation of Colonia Dignidad and issue a decree that nullifies the one that initiated the plan,” announced Housing Minister Iván Poduje over the weekend, dismissing the continuation of the process initiated by former President Gabriel Boric’s administration that involves 117 hectares of the German enclave, intended to be transformed into a memorial site.

In an interview with La Tercera, the minister argued that the decision is due to a lack of available resources. “The urban area alone is estimated at $47 billion. I don’t have that,” he stated.

In response to Kast’s administration’s decision, the INDH pointed out that the observation mission regarding the former Colonia Dignidad it conducted in 2024 revealed various human rights violations suffered by individuals living there from the early 1960s until the 1990s.

“Children, adolescents, women, and men were subjected to living conditions that violated their personal integrity, the right to education, privacy, the right to marry, and to establish a family, among other documented experiences,” the institute emphasized in a statement.

The INDH reminded that this enclave, founded in 1961 by Nazi leader Paul Schäfer in the commune of Parral, Linares Province, Maule Region, was later transformed into a detention, torture, and extermination center during Pinochet’s civic-military dictatorship, where a significant number of people were kidnapped, tortured, murdered, and disappeared, with their final fates still unknown. This location thus represents a «site of interest for the investigations conducted by the judiciary as part of the National Search Plan.»

In the reported document, the organization highlighted that the crimes against humanity committed by the state impose undeniable obligations regarding truth, justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-repetition aimed at both victims and society as a whole. Thus, the far-right leader’s choice to not progress with the expropriation of part of the National Monument of the former Colonia Dignidad «weakens one of the most significant measures to safeguard evidence, ensure its preservation, and guarantee public access to a site of high historical and judicial value.»

The INDH indicated that this state commitment cannot be downplayed and emphasized that, on the contrary, it must be reaffirmed «through a clear, transparent, and participatory proposal that effectively involves victims and society as a whole,» to ensure «the comprehensive protection of the site, the continuity of judicial processes, and compliance with international standards.»