Villa Baviera Era
As of 2005, there is still a colony on the site, but its current leaders insist that changes have taken place. The current leader is Peter Müller. He has attempted to modernize the colony, allowing residents to leave to study at university and opening the colony to tourism.
On August 26, 2005, Chilean authorities entered the enclave to take control of its assets as part of an investigation into its former leaders. Control of the community was assigned to a state-appointed lawyer.
In April 2006, former members of the colony issued a public apology and asked for forgiveness for forty years of sexual abuse of children and other abuses of human rights. In a full-page letter published in El Mercurio, a leading Chilean newspaper, the former members said that their charismatic former leader Paul Schäfer dominated them in mind and body while he molested their own children.
Read more about this topic: Villa Baviera
Famous quotes containing the word era:
“It is not an era of repose. We have used up all our inherited freedom. If we would save our lives, we must fight for them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)