Pinochet victims remembered

New museum pays homage to Chileans who suffered under authoritarian rule.

CHile memorial museum

Chile is gearing up for a presidential run-off next Sunday after neither top candidate clinched a definitive win in the first round of voting.

Independent candidate Sebastian Pinera, a conservative billionaire, is in the lead at present against former president Eduardo Frei.

It is the largest show of support an independent candidate has seen in recent history. The two main candidates faced off in a televised debate late on Monday as their campaigns reach the final stretch.

At the centre of that debate was Chile’s human-rights record. Some of Pinera’s conservative supporters are known to have backed Augusto Pinochet’s iron rule decades ago.

Amid this flurry of political activity, a new memorial museum is opening this week in Santiago, the capital, a project led personally by Michelle Bachelet, the current president.

The museum is a tribute to tens of thousands of victims, who like herself, suffered under Pinochet’s rule.

Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman has this report.

Source: Al Jazeera