Chile opens memorial to dictatorship victims
Chile is gearing up for a presidential runoff next Sunday after neither top candidate clinched a definitive win in the first round of voting. Independent candidate Sebastian Pinera, a conservatiev billionaire, is in the lead at present against former president Eduardo Frei. It is the largest shwo 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 cetnre of that debate was Chile’s human rights record. Some of Pinera’s conservative supporters are known to have backed Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship 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 liek herself, suffered under Pinochet’s dicatatorship. Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman has this report (12 Jan 10).