Over thirty years after the end of the Pinochet dictatorship in 1990, the government of Chile has formally admitted responsibility for the disappearance, and presumed deaths, of over two thousand individuals at the hands of the Chilean military and associated paramilitary groups. The government has also committed to searching for and identifying those whose fates remain officially unknown, numbering over a thousand.

This move marks a major shift for the government, which until now has either ignored the fate of the disappeared or treated them like events from a tragic — and hopefully forgotten — past. Acknowledging the disappeared will go some way toward bringing these victims and their families some closure and justice.

But the initiative isn’t without its detractors — major sectors of the Chilean military and Chilean society in general oppose this move and continue to extol Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. The controversy over the government’s admission of guilt highlights the divisions that still rend the country, and which have presented serious challenges for progressive president Gabriel Boric since he took office.