Far-right lawmakers in Chile have proposed the creation of a 'museum of truth' to present their version of the years preceding General Augusto Pinochet's bloody dictatorship, focusing on what they call the 'victims' of Salvador Allende's socialist government.
The bill, presented by seven congresspeople from the far-right National Libertarian Party, claims the museum would highlight the 'outrage, hunger and humiliation' of Allende's Popular Unity government. Allende was elected in 1970 but his socialist government faced economic difficulties, including rising inflation and supply shortages. He was overthrown by Pinochet's CIA-backed coup on 11 September 1973.
The lawmakers assert the museum would 'preserve the complete and true historical memory of the victims of supply shortages, political violence ... [and] economic chaos' of the Allende period. The bill was introduced by Johannes Kaiser, a former YouTuber who has become a force on the extreme right of Chilean politics as president of the National Libertarian Party. In the first round of last year's presidential elections, Kaiser won 13.9% of the vote while praising the Pinochet dictatorship, under which thousands were murdered, forcibly disappeared, tortured, imprisoned, or exiled.
Chile has shifted to the far right since José Antonio Kast, an ultraconservative Catholic father-of-nine, assumed the presidency in March after a two-decade career opposing progressive values. The bill calls on Kast to create the museum and compile testimonies and photography from the Allende years to elevate what the far-right claim are victims of his reforms. Kast has often publicly defended the dictatorship's legacy, which continues to divide Chile. A 2023 survey found that 36% of Chileans approved of the Pinochet regime, which ended after losing a 1988 referendum, leading to democracy's return in 1990.
A large national human rights and memory museum in Santiago remembers the victims of the Pinochet regime. The bill's text, which calls for preserving the 'complete and true historical memory of its people, without ideological bias, without convenient omissions,' omits all mention of the CIA's role in fomenting economic chaos in Chile and attempts to topple Allende's government during the Cold War. The bill will be voted on in the chamber of deputies in the coming days; although non-binding, it would result in a formal petition to Kast to initiate the museum's creation.
