Tens of thousands of people descended Tuesday onto the Plaza de Mayo under a clear Buenos Aires sky to mark 50 years since the 1976 military coup that triggered seven years of brutal dictatorship. 

From 1976 until the return of democracy in 1983, human rights organizations estimate that 30,000 people were killed; leftists, students, trade unionists were tortured, bound and tossed from helicopters into the Atlantic, pregnant women were imprisoned until giving birth, then executed, their children kidnapped by military families.

Thousands of people remain missing. Thousands of families continue to search for their disappeared, sifting through the dust of mass graves, hoping a fragment of bone may lead to an identification that can bring peace. 

Doubting memory

Every 24 March, thousands of people — politicians, human rights organizations, the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, a charity dedicated to identifying the children torn from their mothers’ arms — march in memory. 

In the 21st century, after to and fro-ing between amnesty laws and prosecutions in a tumultuous return to democracy, commemorating the coup and the victims of the Dirty War that followed, respecting the institution of memory and the work of human rights organizations was somewhat guaranteed.

The election of libertarian Javier Miliei to the presidency in 2023 challenged this consensus. Miliei has sought to undermine the Nunca Más report which documented the military junta’s crimes. He has ridiculed human rights organizations and cut their funding. He has described the dictatorship as a “war” of equal sides. 

On Tuesday, as has become tradition for Milei, he posted a video to his social media accounts to mark the anniversary. In 2024 and 2025, his videos challenged the purported death toll of the Dirty War. This year, a 75-minute long film encouraged Argentines to search for “complete memory” that “combats the biased and vindictive view” of his left-wing predecessors, accusing them of using “biased memory” as a “tool of manipulation.”

Politicized memory

Milei’s video politicized memory and used the 50th anniversary as an opportunity to bash his opponents, namely former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner who is on house arrest for corruption charges. 

The more than ten separate marches that converged on the Plaza de Mayo also rooted their commemoration in the politics of today. Many, as well as carrying posters and banners branded with ‘Never Again’ and ‘Where are the disappeared?’, held placards demanding Kirchner’s release. One of the largest parades marched past Kirchner’s balcony where she makes regular appearances. On Tuesday, video footage showed Kirchner waving to the crowd as they chanted for her freedom. 

When, in the afternoon, each of the parades had made it to the square, delegates of different human rights organizations took to the stage. Argentine newspaper La Nación reported one representative said “the imprisonment and political ban imposed on Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, former President of Argentina, following a trial marred by gross irregularities, during which an attempt was made on her life, deserves our concern and condemnation.”

Other speakers tied the atrocities of the dictatorship to the incumbent government. Mayra Mendoza, the leftist Mayor of Quilmes, told the crowd Milei and the junta leaders “must be linked together” for both are loyal to neo-liberal economic policies. 

The Peronist Governor of Buenos Aires Province, Axel Kicillof, levied similar accusations: “Fifty years after the coup, public squares across the country are more crowded than ever. This is in response to a government that is pursuing the same economic policies that the military dictatorship imposed through state-sponsored terrorism.”

Tuesday’s commemoration became much more than an act of memory. With both sides using the day to plant blows on the other and advance their own political agendas, the extent of division in Argentina became one of the day’s largest takeaways, somewhat overshadowing touching acts of commemoration and the pain of those still searching for answers 50 years later .

Featured Image: People march to the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires on the 50th anniversary of the 1976 military coup

Image Credit: Axel Kicillof via X

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Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado greeted Thursday 17,000 Venezuelans in the streets of Santiago, Chile. 

“Santiago is overflowing with us, my Venezuelans!,” she told the crowd as they shouted “Maria Presidente,” spilling out from downtown Parque Almagro in a sea of Venezuelan flags.

Earlier, hundreds of well wishers had gathered in Plaza de Armas to welcome Machado as she was awarded the keys to the city by the Santiago mayor. There, she hugged and took selfies with well-wishers. Later, in the march, she embraced members of the crowd, inviting two children to join her on the stage and wave to the thousands lining the streets. 

The march, which the police had planned to be attended by 4,000, was the largest public demonstration attended by Machado since she left Venezuela in December. After leaving the event, Machado said it was “indescribable” on social media. 

“Today our clear path is to move forward so that all those who have been forced to leave their country can travel back to reunite with their families with their heads held high,” Machado said. 

Chile is home to the fourth largest Venezuelan diaspora in Latin America with almost 700,000 Venezuelan nationals living there, 42% of the foreign-born Chilean population. Of the illegal migrants living in Chile, 75% are Venezuelan, according to figures from the Liberty and Development think tank. 

Exploiting these figures was central to new President José Antonio Kast’s successful presidential campaign. He promised to expel thousands of illegal migrants living in Chile. In his inaugural address Wednesday, he said he had already ordered the military to build a physical barrier along the border with Bolivia, a regular crossing for migrants arriving on foot. 

In his first day in office, Kast launched the Shield Frontier Plan, a strategy for erecting walls five meters in height equipped with motion sensors, facial recognition and infrared cameras. The plan also includes funding for surveillance drones along Chile’s northern borders.

As violent and petty crime has risen in recent years, the Centre for Public Studies says seven in ten Chileans “strongly agree” that illegal immigration is driving insecurity. 

Kast, his followers and other members of his party have, in their discourse against migration, publicly targeted the Venezuelan diaspora. In January, Kast singled out Venezuelans on Canal 5 Noticias, saying illegal Venezuelans’ “days were numbered” as he promised an unprecedented ramp up of deportation orders. After his election victory, he repeatedly called on Venezuelans to remove themselves from Chile before he took power. 

Machado, who was in Chile for Kast’s inauguration, said in a statement that the Venezuelans living in Chile were “decent people.”

“What we are doing here today is asking all Chileans — and all Latin Americans — to help us ensure that every Venezuelan can return with dignity and freedom to the country they adore,” she added.

Read more: José Antonio Kast becomes Chile’s first hard-right president since dictatorship  

Striking a similar tone to Kast, U.S. President Donald Trump has vilified Venezuelan’s living in the U.S., tying them to the international criminal organization, one the U.S. labels terrorist, the Tren de Aragua. Since taking office, Trump has said Venezuelans linked to the gang were “invading” the U.S.

Machado, who gifted her Nobel Peace Prize medal to Trump in January following the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro, said in a video address Thursday that Trump remained a “fundamental ally” to Venezuela.

Trump had earlier questioned Machado’s suitability to lead, citing (misleading) low approval ratings. Trump has also praised Venezuela’s interim president and Maduro’s former vice president, who is widely disliked by Venezuelans.

As tension between the Venezuelan diaspora and the new hardline government bubble in Chile, Machado tread a fine line, telling reporters that she had not yet discussed with Kast how Chile can support Venezuelan’s who have fled the country.

Featured Image: Thousands gather in the streets of Santiago, Chile with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado

Image credit: Maria Corina Machado via X

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