Panama Papers database on shell companies goes online

Yahoo – AFP, Paul Handley, May 10, 2016

An online database has been put up to allow public access to the Panama Papers
 11.5 million documents, leaked from the law firm Mossack Fonseca (AFP
 Photo/Rodrigo Arangua)

Washington (AFP) - The public gained its first access to the Panama Papers records of over 200,000 secret offshore companies when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists put a searchable database up online.

The database, built on just a portion of the 11.5 million documents leaked from the Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca, reveals more than 360,000 names of individuals and companies behind the anonymous shell firms, the ICIJ said.

It reveals the full extent to which the world's wealthy, alongside criminals, create such nominee companies to stash and transfer assets out of sight of the law and tax officials.

Reports already published in April based on the explosive dossier linked some of the world's most powerful leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister David Cameron and others to unreported offshore companies.

Iceland's prime minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, and Spain's industry minister Jose Manuel Soria, were forced to resign when they were tied to shell companies.

Until now access to the total cache of documents, originally provided by a mysterious "John Doe", was restricted to the ICIJ and a select group of international media.

Panama Papers leaks: political connections (AFP Photo/Adrian Leung,

John Saeki)

'In the public interest'

The ICIJ said Monday it is publishing some of the information catalogued in a database "in the public interest," as a global movement against tax evasion and the secrecy accorded the beneficial owners of anonymous shell companies gains force.

The database "allows users to explore the networks of companies and people that used -- and sometimes abused -- the secrecy of offshore locales with the help of Mossack Fonseca and other intermediaries," the ICIJ said.

It said it was not making available raw records online, nor was it putting all the information from the records out, in part to prevent access to bank account details and personal data of those mentioned.

The database can be searched by individual and company name and address, and shows links between those in the database.

But it gives no information -- beyond their name -- on the full identities of those behind the companies, nor of the underlying assets linked to the accounts.

And often the names of companies are linked to other similarly anonymous companies.

Even so, the individuals associated with the firms plainly come from all four corners of the globe. Many of the names are Chinese, Middle Eastern, Latin American and European.

The data came from nearly four decades of digital archives of Mossack Fonseca, one of the leading firms in the world for creating secret companies.

It is not known how the documents came to light; Mossack Fonseca says its computer records were hacked from abroad.

However they were obtained, "John Doe" first provided them to the German newspaper Süeddeustche Zeitung, which then approached ICIJ to organize a collective analysis of them.

Graphic showing public figures forced to resign or under pressure following the

Panama papers revelations (AFP Photo/Kun Tian, Alain Bommenel)

Criminals, filmmakers, footballers

The groups working with the ICIJ had full access to the Panama Papers, and their research has linked political leaders, celebrities and a few criminals to the companies.

- Putin's closest circle moved $2 billion through banks and shadow companies, according to the ICIJ, prompting the Russian leader to claim the Panama Papers was a US plot against him.

- Argentine President Mauricio Macri was also linked to offshore companies.

- China censored media and online social networks from mentioning links between the families of Chinese leaders with offshore entities.

- The names of Argentine footballer Lionel Messi, Hong Kong film star Jackie Chan and Spanish movie director Pedro Almodovar, all came up in the database.

Mossack Fonseca on Thursday sought a court order last week to prevent the ICIJ from putting the data online, arguing it would violate attorney-client privilege.

But the ICIJ said it is important the public be able to look up information on any offshore company.

"We think that information about who owns the company should be public and transparent," Marina Walker Guevara, deputy director of the ICIJ, told CNN.

She stressed, however, that "this is not disclosing private information en masse."

Related Articles:

Panama Papers showed vulnerability of whole system: Panama president
Switzerland, Singapore join clampdown on bank secrecy (Update)

Australian court rules against PNG abortion for asylum-seeker

A federal court has said a pregnant asylum-seeker cannot be forced to have an abortion in Papua New Guinea, rather than Australia. The woman claims to have been raped in an offshore detention center on Nauru.

Deutsche Welle, 7 May 2016

In his ruling late on Friday, Justice Mordecai Bromberg said the African asylum-seeker, who has sought an abortion in Australia, could not be forced to have the operation in Papua New Guinea because it was both unsafe and illegal.

Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton had ordered that the pregnant African woman, identified in court documents only as S99, be sent to Papua New Guinea for the procedure in line with the government's hardline policy on immigration, under which refugees trying to reach the country by boat are told they will never be settled in Australia.

Instead, they are sent for offshore processing to camps on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

Under the policy, such refugees can only be brought to Australia under "exceptional circumstances" - and Dutton has said the woman's case is not exceptional enough.

In a 150-page judgment, Bromberg said that the "abortion in Papua New Guinea made available to the applicant is attended by safety and lawfulness risks that a reasonable person in the minister's position would have avoided."

Dutton says the woman's circumstances are not exceptional enough for
treatment in Australia

Papua New Guinea allows abortion only in case of danger to a woman's life. The woman has claimed she was raped while she was in Nauru, where abortion is also illegal except to save the life of the woman or to preserve her physical or mental health.

Bromberg also rejected Dutton's argument that he had no duty of care toward the woman, saying she had been, and still was, reliant on the minister for all her basic needs.

He said the woman had serious neurological, physiological and psychological conditions that required expert care.

The camps are a controversial issue in Australia as well

Policy under fire

A spokesman for Dutton said the court ruling was "under consideration," and suggested that the government might appeal.

The camps on Nauru and Manus Island have come under widespread criticism from the United Nations and human rights groups, amid reports of harsh conditions and systemic child abuse.

Papua New Guinea last month after the country's Supreme Court ruled it illegal, while on Nauru, two people have set themselves on fire this month to protest against conditions there.

A 23-year-old Iranian man died of the injuries he sustained, and a young Somali woman remains in critical condition in an Australian hospital.

Australia doctors demand children be freed from #immigration detention http://t.co/oSHkZyvn5V pic.twitter.com/s9yLBKHA2Z

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 12, 2015

Related Articles:

Australia formally set for July 2 general election - New

Papua New Guinea announces Australian refugee center closure
Australia doctors demand children be freed from immigration detention

Nauru opens gates at refugee detention center



"New Systems" - Feb 27, 2016 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)
"The New Human P1" - Sep 19-20, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)
"Return of the Masters" - Apr 11-12, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

Major money launderer nabbed in Colombia

Colombian police have closed in on a prominent Panamanian businessman and suspected money launderer for drug cartels, Nidal Waked. The United States said Waked controlled an empire of front companies.

Deutsche Welle, 6 May 2016

Only minutes after Nidal Waked, an affluent Colombian businessman with a complex network of banking, real estate and retail companies, walked through customs at a Bogota airport, anti-narcotics officers swooped in.

The arrest was part of a broad international operation that targeted the financial support system of major Colombian and Mexican drug cartels. According to American officials, Waked is suspected of funneling drug proceeds through his vast business empire.

A day after the arrest, which took place on Wednesday night, the US Treasury Department said it had frozen the assets of 68 companies in Colombia and Panama City, whose reputation for being a place to hide money was recently exposed by a massive leak of documents known as the Panama Papers.

A web of companies

The companies targeted by the US fell under a drug kingpin designation, which blacklists entities thought to be involved in the trafficking of narcotics.

"This action exposes the Waked Money Laundering Organization and disrupts its ability to launder drug trafficking proceeds using trade-based methods, duty-free retail, real estate development, and financial services throughout the region," said John Smith, the acting director of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Waked and his father, Abdul Waked, are believed to be the co-leaders of a web of companies used to launder money that include a luxury mall, a bank and the zone of duty-free shops at Panama City's international airport.

Popular airport

In 2007, Grupo Wisa, the Waked family's holding company, led a consortium of companies to buy the duty-free zone for $173 million (151.6 million euros). Panama City is located along the route that South American cocaine takes on its way to the US, and the airport shops offered an easy way to convert cash into expensive jewelry, perfume or electronics.

Nidal Waked is in custody in Bogota, but the US has requested he be extradited to face federal charges of money laundering and bank fraud in Florida.

Another one of the family's businesses, the Balboa Bank and Trust, was also taken over by Panama's banking supervision office this week and police officers were posted outside. The bank is also on the US sanctions blacklist.

cjc/uhe (AP, dpa, AFP)

Panama Papers showed vulnerability of whole system: Panama president

Yahoo – AFP, May 3, 2016

Panama's President Juan Carlos Varela delivers keynote address at a luncheon
during the Washington Conference on the Americas at the State Department on
May 3, 2016 in Washington, DC (AFP Photo/Mandel Ngan)

Washington (AFP) - The scandal triggered by the Panama Papers leak of information on how and where the world's wealthy stash funds to avoid detection or taxes underscored many countries' vulnerabilities, President Juan Carlos Varela said Tuesday.

Speaking at the State Department in Washington, the Panamanian president said the documents "reveal a worldwide problem, that involves many countries with legal and financial institutions" vulnerable to actions "that are not in the public interest."

Mossack Fonseca's founder lawyer Ramon

 Fonseca is a friend of Panama's President 

Juan Carlos Varela (shown here) and, until 

March, served as a senior advisor in his 

cabinet (AFP Photo/Rodrigo Arangua)

To that end, countries need to improve transparency and information sharing, Varela argued.

"We urge the international community to maintain a respectful dialogue through diplomatic channels," he added.

Panama and the United States last week signed an agreement on sharing of back account information in a step Panama's finance minister hailed as proof of his country's cooperation in fighting tax evasion.

The bilateral agreement comes weeks after the Panama Papers, a series of reports around the world revealing how one Panamanian law firm set up offshore entities to help the world's wealthy stash their assets.

Following the revelations, Panama has come under intense international pressure to open its financial sector to greater transparency or risk being put back on a global "tax haven" blacklist.

While the government has long said it is committed to that goal and has made some reforms in that direction, it has so far not signed up to an international standard on automatic sharing of tax information set by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Panama's President Juan Carlos Varela, left, sits with Singapore's President 

Tony Tan, right, for a meeting at the Istana or presidential palace on Friday, 

April 22, 2016, in Singapore. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Related Article:

Switzerland, Singapore join clampdown on bank secrecy (Update)

Leaked papers allege US pressuring EU over TTIP free trade deal

German media say secret documents reveal the US has pressured the EU to approve a transatlantic free trade deal. The reports say Washington may block easier car exports if the EU doesn't open up its agricultural market.

Deutsche Welle, 2 May 2016

German media say 240 pages of text from secret transatlantic free trade talks obtained by Greenpeace show that the US is pressuring the EU.

Washington was blocking European car exports into the US to force the 508-million-population EU to buy more environmentally risky US farm produce, claimed the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" (SZ) newspaper and two German public television channels.

Greenpeace said it would publish the material later on Monday, contrary to strict secrecy maintained by US and EU negotiating teams during three years of talks on the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

The TTIP is unpopular in Germany. On the eve of US President Barack Obama's visit to a major Hanover trade exhibition last week, tens of thousands of opponents demonstrated.

Documents seem authentic

The German news agency DPA said persons close to the talks had confirmed the authenticity of the documents. Accessibility so far has been strictly limited.

By blocking an easing of car exports into the US, Washington wanted the EU to replace its precautionary consumer safety principle with the liberal US approach of permitting foodstuffs until risks are proven, said the media outlets, including the ARD network's channels NDR and WDR.

The EU's principle that goods must first be certified as safe has often been cited by the EU to constrain imports of American gene-manipulated and hormone-treated produce.

TTIP opponents rallied as Obama headed to Hannover

Public arbitration panels blocked

The German outlets said the documents disclosed by Greenpeace also showed that the US was blocking an EU demand that arbitration panels to handle corporate lawsuits be public not private as sought by Washington.

Greenpeace trade expert Jürgen Knirsch said what had so far trickled out of the talks had "sounded like a nightmare."

"Now we know that this could very much become reality," said Knirsch.

The head of Germany's consumer advisory bureaus Klaus Müller told the SZ that the texts confirmed "pretty much all of our fears in terms of what the US-Americans want to achieve on the food produce market through TTIP."

Merkel and Obama called for 'urgency' on TTIP

Urgency sought by Obama, Merkel

Visiting Hanover last week, US President Barack Obama together with German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for urgency at the TTIP negotiations.

Obama said he hoped it would the talks would be concluded in 2017, beyond the next US presidential election due in November this year.

Last Friday in New York, the lead US and EU negotiators - US Trade Representative Daniel Mullaney and the European Commission's Ignacio Garcia Bercera - said they hoped to reach a deal before Obama leaves office in January.

ipj/jr (dpa, AFP, Reuters)

Related Article:

TTIP: Free trade at expense of the environment?

Lack of transparency is being criticized: TTIP negotiations have been taking 

place behind closed doors

Protesters storm parliament in Iraq's Green Zone

Yahoo – AFP, Ammar Karim, April 30, 2016

Iraqi protesters climb over a concrete wall surrounding the parliament after
breaking into Baghdad's heavily fortified "Green Zone" on April 30, 2016
(AFP Photo/Haidar Mohammed Ali)

Baghdad (AFP) - Thousands of angry protesters broke into Baghdad's fortified Green Zone area on Saturday and stormed the Iraqi parliament building after lawmakers again failed to approve new ministers.

Jubilant crowds, most of them supporters of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, invaded the main session hall, shouting slogans glorifying their leader and claiming that they had rooted out corruption.

The capital was already on high alert for a major Shiite pilgrimage, participants in which were targeted in a bombing that killed 23 on Saturday, but extra security measures were taken after protesters stormed the Green Zone.

"You are not staying here! This is your last day in the Green Zone," shouted one protester as thousands broke in.

Besides the parliament compound, the restricted area in central Baghdad houses the presidential palace, the prime minister's office and several embassies, including those of the United States and Britain.

Protesters pulled down several slabs of the heavy concrete blast walls that surround the Green Zone to create an opening and also climbed over the barrier.

They then headed to parliament, where some rampaged through the building and broke into offices, while others shouted "peacefully, peacefully" and tried to contain the destruction, an AFP journalist said.

Security forces were present but did not confront them.

Some six hours after the Green Zone was stormed and despite the chaos, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi issued a statement claiming the situation in Baghdad was "under the control of the security forces" and urging protesters to return to "designated protest areas".

Iraqi protesters flash V-signs inside the parliament building after breaking into 

Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone on April 30, 2016 (AFP Photo/Haidar 

Mohammed Ali)

Chaos at parliament

Parliament speaker Salim al-Juburi meanwhile issued a statement that referred to MPs as "representatives of the people, and their servants" -- descriptions with which many Iraqis would disagree.

Tear gas was used against protesters but violence did not escalate further, with both sides mostly seen fraternising.

An AFP photographer said members of the Sadrist militia group Saraya al-Salam were in control of the parliament building and were not permitting protesters to enter.

Demonstrators left parliament and began a sit-in at Ihtifalat Square inside the Green Zone.

Protesters earlier pulled barbed wire across a road leading to one of the Green Zone exits, attempting to prevent some scared lawmakers from fleeing the chaos.

They also attacked and damaged several vehicles they believed belonged to MPs.

Inside the main hall where lawmakers failed to reach a quorum earlier in the day, protesters sat in the MPs' seats taking "selfies" and shouting slogans.

One protester called a friend on his mobile: "I am sitting in Salim al-Juburi's chair, I have a meeting, we'll talk later."

"We are the ones running this country now, the time of the corrupt is over," said another, as crowds filled rooms throughout the building.

Parliament failed to reach a quorum on Saturday after approving some of Abadi's ministerial nominees earlier in the week.

The Green Zone unrest started as Sadr ended a news conference in the Shiite holy city of Najaf during which he condemned the political deadlock.

He had threatened to have his supporters storm the Green Zone last month, but did not order them to enter the area in his Saturday address.

Thousands of Iraqi protesters invaded the main session hall of the parliament 

in Baghdad on April 30, 2016 (AFP Photo/Haidar Mohammed Ali)

Baghdad on high alert

The politicians "refused to end corruption and refused to end quotas", Sadr said, adding that he and his supporters would not participate in "any political process in which there are any type... of political party quotas".

Key government posts have for years been shared out based on political and sectarian quotas, a practice demonstrators want to end.

Abadi's efforts to change the system have been opposed by powerful political parties that rely on control of ministries for patronage and funds.

"The parliament and the government are simply not capable of reforming. They will always defend privilege over reform," said Zaid al-Ali, a fellow at Princeton University and the author of "The Struggle For Iraq's Future".

Given that, "it was entirely predictable that this was going to happen", said Ali, referring to the storming of the Green Zone.

According to interior ministry officials, the main entrances to Baghdad were temporarily closed, and measures were taken to protect the central bank and the airport.

Security forces had already been on high alert as tens of thousands of Shiite faithful converged on the city for an annual commemoration.

Both Washington and the United Nations have warned that the political crisis could distract from the fight against the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group.

IS claimed a bombing that targeted Shiite pilgrims in the Nahrawan area near Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 23 people and wounding at least 38, security and medical officials said.

Dutch lawyer starts criminal case against tobacco firms

DutchNews, April 29, 2016

Photo: DutchNews.nl

A Dutch lawyer and lung cancer patient are planning to take tobacco companies to court for for producing cigarettes designed to turn people into addicts as quickly as possible. 

Lawyer Benedicte Ficq and cancer victim Anne Marie van Veen are putting together a criminal case against cigarette producers, arguing that out of court settlements do not go far enough.

‘I want to see tobacco firms prosecuted for deliberately damaging people’s health,’ Ficq told television programme RTL Late Night. 

Tobacco firms cannot hide behind the freedom of choice of people to smoke because they are deliberately influencing smokers’ behaviour, Ficq and Van Veen argue. 

Poison

‘To limit that freedom, addictive chemicals such as nicotine and other additives are put into cigarettes,’ they say. ‘And [the companies] overcome our natural aversion to poisons by adding substances like menthol.’ 

Nor does the argument that the government does not ban smoking hold water, Ficq said. ‘If I fed my children rat poison every day and they eventually die, I would be prosecuted for murder,’ she said. ‘The tobacco industry is simply getting away with it.’ 

Ficq and Van Veen are appealing for other people to sign up to their campaign.

Related Articles:

California raises tobacco buying age to 21

The Truth About Cancer: A Global Quest docu-series - official trailer

The Truth About Cancer: A Global 

Quest docu-series - official trailer

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. 

The Next Ones to Fall

There's something potentially coming that you should know about, and I've reported it before two other times. But I want you to hear it again. What other very large industries don't have integrity, but also have a great deal of money? Prepare for the crumbling of big pharma in America. It is starting now and when the reports happen and the movie is created [smile], Americans will wake up to the fact that they have an enormously wealthy industry that keeps people sick for money.

You're not going to like it and you're not going to tolerate it. Watch. What I say today is not fortune telling, dear ones. I am reporting the potentials of Human nature before me. I'm reporting that awareness is starting to grab that which is inappropriate on this planet, what you call old energy, and slowly is beginning to move it to a place you never thought it would go. It's a place of integrity that your parents told you was impossible for large institutions, but here you are living it. Along with this also will be changes in the very large business of insurance, as we told you before. …”

"THE BRIDGE OF SWORDS" – Sep 29, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) - (Text Version)

“…I'm in Canada and I know it, but I will tell those listening and reading in the American audience the following: Get ready! Because there are some institutions that are yet to fall, ones that don't have integrity and that could never be helped with a bail out. Again, we tell you the biggest one is big pharma, and we told you that before. It's inevitable. If not now, then in a decade. It's inevitable and they will fight to stay alive and they will not be crossing the bridge. For on the other side of the bridge is a new way, not just for medicine but for care. Paradigms that have not yet been thought of, which don't represent any system that currently exists, will be created and developed by young minds who have concepts that the seniors don't know about. Things that don't have integrity today will fall over tomorrow. Just get ready. It's all part of what's on the other side of the bridge. And the old energy won't like it, and they will object. …”

Colonia Dignidad: No 'glorious chapter' for German diplomacy

Torture, slavery, child abuse: Germany's foreign minister met with victims of a German sect run in Chile for decades. At the same time, the government in Berlin is declassifying the Colonia Dignidad files.

Deutsche Welle, 27 April 2016

Human rights groups welcome as a "positive step" plans by the German government to make public files on the notorious Colonia Dignidad colony in Chile.

Files that would have remained sealed for another decade will be made available to journalists and researchers in the coming weeks, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. The documents detail how informed German diplomats were about what was going on in the colony from 1986 to 1996. The foreign ministry isn't responsible for what Paul Schäfer and his cronies did, but the German embassy denied the colony's residents the protection they would have needed. "I salute the victims of Colonia Dignidad," Steinmeier told a group of victims Tuesday in Berlin.

Wolfgang Kneese managed to flee
when he was 20

Steinmeier conceded that German diplomats for decades turned a blind eye to the human tragedy playing out before them, adding that embassy staff in Chile should have been able to see what was going on at the Colonia Dignidad commune. From the 60s to the 80s, German diplomats looked the other way, and "did too little to protect their citizens in this commune," he said.

Respect for the victims

The foreign ministry in Berlin has pledged that it will find out what role German diplomats played. "Transparency is imperative," Steinmeier told the victims, who had traveled from Chile to Berlin to hear just those words.

Colonia Dignidad was founded in 1961 by Paul Schäfer, a German lay preacher, former soldier and convicted pedophile who fled the country to Chile after World War II.

Today, victims estimate that over the course of 30 years, more than 30,000 boys were raped at the remote commune hidden behind security fences. Schäfer brutally suppressed and controlled his followers, including brainwashing, draconic punishments and enforcing a vow of secrecy. Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet used the German commune, which was situated about 350 kilometers south of the capital Santiago, as a torture camp, and hid weapons and poison gas on the premises.

A scene from the film Colonia

One of the few who managed to extricate himself from the sect's grip doesn't like to be reminded of the role the German embassy played. "When I left the colony, I was wary of the foreign ministry," Wolfgang Kneese said, adding that Paul Schäfer's system involved people who profited from Colonia Dignidad, who went along with the sect's well-oiled apparatus of repression, and who looked the other way.

Emotionally crippled

A feature film about Colonia Dignidad actually got the ball rolling.

"Colonia" by Florian Gallenberger aired in Germany last year after the director had put in five years of research. The film reminded the foreign ministry of this dark chapter of German diplomacy, Steinmeier said, adding that it goes to show how culture can "act as a trigger for politics."

The commune is the only home Anna
 Schnellenberger ever knew

Anna Schnellenkamp still lives on the premises of the former colony. She was surprised at how well the film depicts Schäfer's harsh rule. "But in truth, it was much worse," she admitted.

Fleeing sex abuse charges by Chilean authorities, Schäfer disappeared in 1997. Almost eight years later, he was found hiding in Argentina, sent back to Chile and sentenced to 33 years in jail for sexual abuse of children. He died in 2010 in a Chilean prison. Meanwhile, life at the colony continued as before.

Today, the commune with its roughly 130 residents calls itself Villa Baviera and tries to attract tourists with Bavarian music and Oktoberfest events.

Many of the original followers stayed on, in part because "no one had documents, no one had money," Schellenkamp said, adding another reason: two out of three are older than 65 years of age. Many of Schäfer's victims feel like emotional cripples, Wolfgang Kneese says. Some hope the German government will grant them psychological support, others demand compensation.

It's time "the burden is taken from our shoulders," Schnellenkamp said.

Traumatized victims, open questions

Many victims find hard to bear the thought that perpetrators have gotten away. Hartmut Hopp, a former colony deputy, fled to Germany in 2011 to avoid imprisonment in Chile, where he was sentenced to five years in jail for child sex abuse in 2005. It's surprising that people, like Hopp, "continue to live freely in Germany," Wolfgang Kneese said. Hopp lives in the western German town of Krefeld, and it remains unclear whether Germany will enforce the Chilean verdict, start new proceedings, or simply put the matter aside. The latter is almost unbearable to many victims.

It's also not clear what will happen to the sect's isolated premises in Chile. Turn it into a memorial, urges film director Florian Gallenberger, who visited the area many times. They have some tourism, but that's all, the director argues. Perhaps an upcoming visit by German President Joachim Gauck to Chile will help resolve matters.

Related Article:

Switzerland to compensate victims of centuries-old child labor practice