MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile's far-right proposes a 'Museum of Truth' on the Allende era to counter coup memory

The coup led by Pinochet ousted Allende and began a 17-year dictatorship (1973-1990) in which thousands of people were killed, disappeared or tortured.

Seven of the eight deputies of the National Libertarian Party (PNL), the far-right group founded by Johannes Kaiser, presented a resolution in Chile's Congress asking President José Antonio Kast to create a “Museum of Truth” devoted to what they describe as “the abuse, hunger and humiliation” of the Popular Unity government, led by Salvador Allende from 1970 until his overthrow on September 11, 1973.

The initiative, submitted on Monday —the same day Kast delivered his first state-of-the-nation address— is a resolution, so that, if approved, it would only reflect the chamber's position and ask the Executive to promote the venue. The text calls for instructing the Ministries of Cultures and Public Works and the National Monuments Council to install it and to collect testimonies and documents from the period. According to the document, the aim is to “preserve the complete and true historical memory” of the victims of shortages, political violence and the economic chaos of the period, and to educate new generations “without ideological bias, without convenient omissions and without the monopoly of a single narrative.”

The proposal seeks to reduce the weight of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights (MMDH), which for 16 years has recounted the 1973 coup and the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet through the experience of the victims, and whose work was recognized in early May with the King of Spain Human Rights Prize. The coup led by Pinochet ousted Allende and began a 17-year dictatorship (1973-1990) in which thousands of people were killed, disappeared or tortured.

Chile preserves 1,168 memory sites. The right has voiced reservations about the MMDH since its creation, during the first government of socialist Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010). In 2018, historian Mauricio Rojas had to resign from the Ministry of Cultures, in Sebastián Piñera's second government, less than four days after taking office, after a 2015 comment in which he called the museum “a montage” came to light.

The PNL, on the most extreme wing of the Chilean right, backed Kast —founder of the Republican Party— in the December 14, 2025 runoff, when he faced the communist Jeannette Jara. The support came after Kaiser, an admirer of Argentine President Javier Milei, finished fourth in the November 16 first round, with 13.9% of the vote. During the campaign, Kaiser went further than Kast himself in directly defending the legacy of the dictatorship.