Bello∣Memory is not history

摘要

It is lunchtime and the Museum of Memory in Santiago has a sprinkling of visitors. They contemplate the exhibits in silence. There is grainy footage of Hawker jets bombing the Moneda palace during General Augusto Pinochet's coup against Salvador Allende, an elected Socialist president, on September nth 1973. A map of Chile shows the 1,132 detention centres set up after the coup, each marked with a flashing light. In videotaped testimony, victims matter-of-factly describe the torture and sexual violence to which they were subjected. There are heartbreaking letters to imprisoned parents from their children and to families from prisoners unaware of their imminent execution.