In Chile, the government of President José Antonio Kast has moved to block the expropriation of Colonia Dignidad, the infamous settlement that served as a center of torture and abuse during Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship. The expropriation effort had been championed by the previous administration of Gabriel Boric as part of a broader reckoning with Chile’s authoritarian past.
Colonia Dignidad — originally founded by Paul Schäfer, a German fugitive and convicted child abuser — functioned as both a closed religious commune and a secret detention center where political prisoners were tortured and disappeared during the 1970s and ’80s. The Boric government had sought to transform the site into a memorial, a move widely supported by human rights organizations. Kast’s decision to halt those plans has reignited fierce debate in Chile about how the nation confronts — or avoids — its darkest chapters.
