Chile accused of airbrushing Augusto Pinochet history
Chile's centre right government has been accused of airbrushing history after it emerged that school textbooks will now refer to the brutal rule of Gen Augusto Pinochet as a "regime" instead of a dictatorship.
Left wing opposition have accused the government of President Sebastián Piñera, elected in 2010 as Chile's first conservative leader since the dictatorship, of attempting to "whitewash history".
The political row erupted when it emerged this week that the National Education Council had formally taken a decision to change the terminology taught to children about the darkest period of Chile's recent history.
More than 3,000 people were murdered or disappeared for political reasons under Pinochet during his rule between 1973-1990, according to figures recently reviewed by an official commission, and the legacy of the period is still bitterly disputed.
The decision to refer to the period as a "regime" rather than a "dictatorship" was qualified by the government as simply the use of "a more general term" and the new education minister denied that it was politically motivated....