Brazil & Southern Cone - September 2026

The minister for justice and human rights, Fernando Rabat, announced in late July that the government will review the official list of people disappeared during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). This was motivated by a case that has caused outrage among the Chilean right – the recent confirmation that Bernarda Vera, a former left-wing activist during the dictatorship period who was declared as disappeared, is still alive and has been living abroad for decades. Politicians allied with the government of far-right President José Antonio Kast have used the Vera case to discredit efforts by previous administrations to redress the legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship.  

Vera was a member of the radical left-wing Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) which opposed the Pinochet regime. She was declared in official records as disappeared since 1973. Her name was included in the list of 1,469 disappeared people identified by authorities during the government of former president Patricio Alwyn (1990-1994). However, media reports emerged in mid-2025 that Vera, now 80 years old, is still alive and has been residing in Argentina.

Rather than being detained during the dictatorship, Vera reportedly fled from Chile to Argentina and later lived in Sweden before returning to South America in the late 1990s. Before her departure from Chile in 1973 at the age of 27, Vera had a daughter, and this year a Chilean court ordered a DNA test, the results of which were revealed in the media on 27 July, confirming that Vera is alive.

On 29 July Rabat gave an interview to national broadcaster Radio Infinita in which he spoke about the Vera case and said that it demonstrates the need to strengthen the Plan Nacional de Búsqueda (national search plan) of the previous government led by former president Gabriel Boric (2022-2026). Rabat said that the official list of disappeared persons should be reviewed to ensure that there are not any more errors.

He also criticised the previous administration for not acting quickly enough on the Vera case, saying that authorities had already been aware of the possibility that Vera was still alive, but it was only under the new Kast administration that authorities confirmed with a DNA test that the woman living in Argentina was indeed Vera. Rabat also said that compensation paid to the families of people who were mistakenly declared as disappeared should be returned to the State.

In the latter months of 2025, radical right-wing figures from parties such as the far-right Partido Nacional Libertario (PNL) were already trying to pile pressure on the Boric administration to verify if Vera was alive. With the recent confirmation from the DNA test, the far right has reiterated its criticisms of the national search plan for disappeared people. The PNL’s Max Murath, who unsuccessfully ran for a seat in congress last year, wrote on social media on 28 July: “We were right. The national search plan for detained and disappeared people is not credible. The left and the Boric government lied.”

Since the Kast administration took office in March this year, media reports have highlighted concerns over potential setbacks to official efforts to bring justice to the families of those disappeared under the dictatorship. There has also been significant attention on Kast’s previous apologism for the Pinochet regime, as well as connections between the Kast government and Pinochet. Rabat, for example, was a lawyer who defended Pinochet in various cases.

Jara killer

On 25 July Chilean police confirmed the arrest of Nelson Haase Mazzei, a retired army officer who has been sentenced for murdering the folk singer and political activist Víctor Jara, one of the most famous dictatorship-era dissidents, who was tortured and killed in 1973. Haase Mazzei was sentenced in 2023 to 25 years in prison for Jara’s murder but fled justice. He has now been recaptured by authorities.