Missing in Chile

SEARCHING FOR BORIS WEISFEILER

On September 11, 2009, the 36th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 1973 military coup, the Chilean Congress approved the bill that would reopen two former Human Rights Commissions: Rettig and Valech. According to Chilean law, the only way to classify a case as being a human rights violation, officially, was through the Commission, which could not be restarted after it finished its work in 1991.

In its 1991 report, the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, commonly known as Rettig Commission, did not include the Weisfeiler case into human right violation category because there was not enough evidence to support such: all of the information gathered by the U.S. Embassy during 5 years of the investigation was regarded as "classified" and therefore not available to the Chilean investigators for evaluation.

In 2000, the US has declassified over 500 documents related to the Weisfeiler’s case. Since 2000, there is an ongoing criminal investigation in Chile, and the case has at times been treated as a de facto human rights case – but not always, and never officially.

The Rettig Commission should re-start its work in November 2009. There would be only a few months to reapply. By establishing that Boris’ murder was a human rights violation in which agents of the State - Carabineros and/or members of an Army patrol - were involved, the Government of Chile would finally acknowledge its role in the fate of Boris Weisfeiler.

September 2009

It has been twenty years since my brother, Boris Weisfeiler, vanished while on a hiking trip in Southern Chile.

To learn more about Boris and my efforts to find him take a look at the photo album “Searching for Boris” below. The album includes pictures of Boris Weisfeiler from 1970’s and early 1980's, pictures from my November 2004 trip to Chile when I visited Colonia Dignidad. Also included are photos taken in 1985 and in 2002 of the location where Boris was last seen.

       --Olga Weisfeiler, January 2005

BORIS WEISFEILER

There are more than 1,100 desaparecidos (disappeared persons) in Chile and one of them is a U.S. citizen - Boris Weisfeiler. A Russian-born mathematics professor at Pennsylvania State University, Weisfeiler vanished while on a hiking trip near the border between Chile and Argentina in the early part of January 1985. After a quick and cursory investigation, Chilean authorities concluded that Weisfeiler had drowned in the Nuble River during his trip.

Declassified U.S. documents tell a different story. According to an informant, Weisfeiler was detained by Augusto Pinochet's soldiers, presumed to be a CIA, or a Russian or a Jewish spy, and taken to the mysterious German settlement Colonia Dignidad. The declassified U.S. documents show that the U.S. Embassy personnel did not do enough to ascertain the fate of Weisfeiler, the only missing U.S. citizen in Chile. As consul Jayne Kobliska stated more than a year after Weisfeiler's disappearance in a memo from April 1986, "the real danger in this case is that we will delay action until it is too late to either save Weisfeiler's life or to determine the true circumstances of his death."

In June 2006, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet met in Washington D.C. with sister of Boris Weisfeiler, Dr. Olga Weisfeiler. In an online posting after the meeting, the Chilean government web site acknowledged that Boris Weisfeiler disappeared in 1985 "after he was arrested by military patrol."

Yet, 24 years after it happened, the Chilean Government is refusing to accept its responsibility in Prof. Weisfeiler disappearance, referring to the 1990-93 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Rettig) report which did not classify the Weisfeiler case as a human rights violation.

The Weisfeiler family is continuing the fight for truth and for justice for Boris – and to force the Chilean Government to formally accept its responsibility for the tragic fate of Prof. Weisfeiler.