Jarek Tello is outfitted with a megaphone and clipboard as he navigates a crowd of protesters in the capital’s city center on a recent afternoon. His mission? Gather enough signatures to push Congress to move up national elections, currently scheduled for 2026. 

The lawyer and activist for Peru’s centrist Purple Party knows it’s a big ask: If elections are moved up, current members of Congress would lose their seats. But like many protesters here today, Mr. Tello argues that holding early elections is the only way to save Peru from an increasingly powerful clique of legislators that many believe is undermining the nation’s democracy.

Peru has churned through six presidents in the past seven years. But the nation’s political crisis worsened at the end of 2022, when Congress impeached then-President Pedro Castillo, a left-wing teacher with Indigenous roots who upended Peru’s conservative establishment when he won the 2021 election. Mr. Castillo’s removal came just hours after he illegally attempted to dissolve Congress and rule by decree in the face of a corruption probe.

The impeachment complied with Peruvian laws, but it unleashed protests in some parts of Peru’s Andean highlands. Mr. Castillo’s initial victory was celebrated in these areas as a historic moment of recognition for the nation’s long-ignored impoverished and Indigenous communities. His removal felt like yet another slight against these groups and has diminished the government’s ability to operate in these regions.

Some 80% of Peruvians want early elections, according to a July poll by the Institute of Peruvian Studies, a research group. As the crisis endures, legislators’ refusal to entertain requests for new elections has generated resentment – including in the capital – toward political elites, which in turn is making the nation harder to govern, experts say. Protests and roadblocks are expected to continue.

“Congress is only defending its own interests,” Mr. Tello says. “What we are trying to do with this petition is to force [legislators] to respond to the will of the people.”

Manuel Rueda

Jarek Tello (left) collects signatures for a petition to hold early presidential elections during a July 28 rally in Lima, Peru.

A lack of incentives?

In cities such as Juliaca and Ayacucho, the protests following Mr. Castillo’s impeachment were met with brutal force from police who used firearms on demonstrators and even shot bystanders, turning public opinion squarely against newly appointed interim President Dina Boluarte. According to Peru’s human rights ombudsperson, 49 people were killed by gunfire in protests that took place between December 2022 and February 2023. The demonstrations also hurt the economy and forced the government to close some of Peru’s famous archaeological sites.

Although the intensity of the protests has diminished, roadblocks continue periodically in the south of the country, and several marches were held at the end of July in Lima, coinciding with the celebration of Peru’s Independence Day. 

Protesters say they are outraged with the lack of progress shown by investigations into the killings, which have not resulted in any convictions so far. But increasingly, citizen frustration is directed toward what feels like a democratic backslide prompted by Peru’s increasingly powerful Congress, which only has an approval of 6%, according to the July poll.

“Members of Congress are making laws for their own benefit and stopped representing us a long time ago,” says Antonia Quisocapa, an Indigenous leader from the region of Puno who traveled to Lima to protest last month. She says President Boluarte should resign: “She’s got her hands full of blood.”

Over the past six months, Peru’s Congress has struck down motions filed by Ms. Boluarte to hold early elections and advanced a law that would enable legislators to remove the judges who preside over Peru’s electoral system. Congress has levied questionable corruption charges against three of the seven magistrates that run the National Judiciary Council, which is in charge of appointing judges to courts nationally.

Rosa María Palacios, an influential columnist and lawyer, describes these moves as an “assault” on Peru’s democracy that is eroding checks and balances. “Congress is using its powers abusively and in a totalitarian manner,” she says.

There are few incentives for Peru’s Congress to approve a law that would activate early elections, says Ms. Palacios. Legislators are constitutionally barred from reelection here, which means if elections come early, they would be putting themselves out of work.

The latest effort to move up elections fizzled in February, as legislators disagreed over whether a referendum over a new constitution should also be included in an early election.

Ms. Boluarte, whose term goes until 2026, initially advocated for early elections. But, during a press conference that followed one of the July protests, she said that laws governing elections were out of her hands, suggesting Peruvians should instead complain over social and economic issues that her government could take action on. 

But she could force new elections to take place – if she resigns. She has dismissed that as an option, saying she has a responsibility to fulfill her constitutional mandate and finish her presidential term. Ms. Boluarte was never voted into the presidential office. She was Mr. Castillo’s vice president and was sworn in after he was impeached. She had promised in gatherings with Mr. Castillo’s supporters that if the president were ever to be removed, she would resign.

“I think they’ve seen that they can ride out the pressure,” says Will Freeman, a political scientist at the Council on Foreign Relations who researches governance in Peru. There are other incentives for the president and many of Peru’s members of Congress to hold on to their seats, he says.

“They definitely don’t want to be investigated” for the human rights violations “that have been happening over the past six months,” Mr. Freeman says. “That also explains the whole push to control institutions.” 

Manuel Rueda

Milagros Samillan marches through the streets of Lima July 27, carrying a photo of her brother Marco Antonio, who was killed in January during a protest in the city of Juliaca.

No guarantee

Peruvians – particularly outside big cities – have become increasingly skeptical of all levels of government over the past six months, says Glaeldys González Calanche, a Peru expert at the International Crisis Group. It’s harder for officials from the central government to implement health and security policies in partnership with regional administrations or municipal governments. On several occasions, government officials have had to leave villages or cancel meetings after locals pushed them away with rocks and sticks. Meanwhile, mayors from some towns in the south of Peru – where most of the killings of protesters occurred – have been reprimanded by their own voters for meeting with Ms. Boluarte and forced to make public apologies. 

“Some people don’t believe that officials [from the central government] are real authorities any longer,” Ms. González says. “What we’re afraid of is that criminal groups could benefit from this chaotic situation.” 

But many Peruvians have become “indifferent” to the political situation, particularly in a nation where political protest has historically been stigmatized and linked to leftist rebel groups, says Ms. Palacios, the lawyer. The latest round of protests in Peru’s capital were much smaller than previous ones; an estimated 20,000 people demonstrated together on July 20.

“If you come out here to protest over the deaths of civilians, they start to accuse you of being a terrorist,” says Ms. Palacios, who says a group of about 20 government supporters with megaphones recently showed up outside her home screaming insults at her for hours over her criticism in columns and on national radio programs of the Boluarte government.

Despite the lack of response to public frustration, some Peruvians are still hopeful they can pressure politicians to hold elections before 2026. Peru’s struggling economy could work in their favor.

The Peru Constitution allows citizens to present topics for congressional debate after gathering 76,000 signatures.

Mr. Tello, the lawyer for the Purple Party, and volunteers are setting up booths in the street several times a week and attending protests where they gather signatures for a petition calling for early elections. They’re even taking down the ID numbers and fingerprints of those who sign, to ensure that the petition can be legalized and, they hope, generate a public conversation among legislators.

So far, the group, which is also backed by a construction workers union, has gathered 37,000 signatures. Members are hoping to reach 76,000 by October.

“The success of this petition is not guaranteed,” Mr. Tello says. “But we will put this issue on the table once again and force legislators to confront it.”

It is a tale of two crashes, with a sobering message for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Which is that while Mr. Putin has reinforced his power at home in recent weeks, the grand geopolitical ambition that inspired his invasion of Ukraine – reasserting Russia’s Soviet-era status as a great world power – is looking increasingly threadbare.

Of the two Russian craft that went down this month, the one signaling the Russian president’s robust authority at home made the bigger headlines worldwide: the plane carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group militia leader who had mutinied against Mr. Putin’s military chiefs last June, which crashed near Moscow.

In the wake of that crash, which Western intelligence analysts attributed to a bomb, Mr. Putin issued a decree requiring all militia fighters to swear allegiance to the Russian state.

Yet the other disaster underscored a longer-term challenge to the Russian president’s global aspirations – exacerbated by his failure to achieve the short, sharp victory he clearly expected when he sent his invasion forces into Ukraine 18 months ago.

That crash occurred 240,000 miles away, on the moon.

It involved an uncrewed vehicle dubbed Luna-25, launched from Russia’s Far East. Russian space engineers lost control of it two weeks ago as it descended toward the moon’s surface.

They had hoped it would land near the moon’s south pole, where scientists have detected signs of ice. Water and its constituents, hydrogen and oxygen, could permit an extended human presence on the moon, and facilitate fuel production for interplanetary exploration.

But for Mr. Putin, the launch was also intended as a geopolitical statement.

It was his country’s first lunar mission since 1976, and after a Cold War space race in which the Soviet Union had notched up spectacular triumphs – notably the world’s first crewed orbital flight, in 1961, by Yuri Gagarin.

Had this month’s lunar mission succeeded, Russia would have become the first nation to achieve a soft landing at the moon’s south pole.

Instead, according to a terse official statement, Luna-25 “moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the moon.”

In the days afterward, Mr. Putin was confronted with reminders of how much more complicated his bid for Russian great-power influence has become amid his war against Ukraine.

Roscosmos State Space Corporation/AP

The Russian moon lander Luna-25 is seen inside a plant shop at a cosmodrome in Russia's Far East. It later went out of control and crashed on the moon's surface.

First, another rising world power – India – succeeded where Russia had failed. It landed its own uncrewed craft at the moon’s south pole.

Amid worldwide messages of congratulation, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi basked in the plaudits of fellow members of the BRICS economic alliance – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – at their summit in Johannesburg.

If there was a consolation for Mr. Putin, it was that he wasn’t there.

But the reason for his absence served only to bring home his – and his country’s – shrinking geopolitical horizons in the face of Western diplomatic and economic sanctions.

Had he gone, South Africa, as a member of the International Criminal Court, would have been obliged to arrest Mr. Putin on ICC charges of deporting Ukrainian children to Russia during the war.

This week, the Kremlin announced Mr. Putin would also skip the G20 summit in India Sept. 9.

While Mr. Putin’s decision not to travel may have been prompted by more substantial motives than reluctance to chat with Mr. Modi about moon landings, the importance that Mr. Putin attaches to space triumphs as a reflection of Russia’s place in the world is not in doubt.

He has regularly praised Mr. Gagarin’s exploits, only recently announcing a national “space achievement” award in his name. And on the 60th anniversary of the Gagarin flight, he declared that “Russia must maintain its status as one of the leading nuclear and space powers, because the space sector is directly linked to defense.”

Nor can the more fundamental contrast with India have escaped him. Russia is a larger country, with far greater reserves of oil, gas, and other resources. But India’s economy is nearly twice as big – with a much more vibrant high-tech sector, a major boost to its space program.

And India, unlike Mr. Putin’s increasingly sanctioned nation, has ready access to the array of microchips, instrumentation, and other equipment essential to space flight.

After the Luna-25 crash, the head of Russia’s space agency insisted on the need to push ahead with the program. Echoing Mr. Putin’s views, he said, “This is not just about the prestige of the country and the achievement of geopolitical goals. It is about ensuring defensive capabilities and achieving technological sovereignty.”

But he also seemed to imply limits to what Russia could achieve on its own, emphasizing plans for a joint mission with China.

The logic is clear: China, especially since the Ukraine invasion, has become Russia’s main, indispensable ally.

But while Russia has been on the moon exploration sidelines for nearly five decades, China has been mounting increasingly complex missions in recent years. It is planning a crewed flight by 2030.

So although cooperation with China in space does make sense for Russia, it will come at a price.

The former superpower will be the junior partner.

As Hurricane Idalia barreled through Florida Wednesday, thousands of homeowners faced the possibility of rebounding without property insurance. 

In the past few years, nearly a dozen property insurers in Florida have liquidated. More have either left the state or restricted coverage, including Farmers Insurance, which pulled out of the Sunshine State last month. Other states prone to high-risk weather events are also losing insurance options. In Louisiana, two dozen insurance companies have dissolved or left since 2020. In California, three of the five largest insurers are limiting new policies or have stopped offering them altogether.

Insurers say payouts are outpacing revenue, as housing costs rise and climate change contributes to more frequent and costly disasters. But consumer advocates push back and say insurance companies are creating a crisis narrative to better position themselves.

Insurers are regulated by each state in which they operate, tasking insurance commissioners with balancing the needs of homeowners against the economic viability of covering losses. “There is no quick fix,” writes Michael Soller, spokesperson for California’s insurance commissioner, Ricardo Lara, in an email. He cites “entrenched interests on all sides” and says the system “is clearly not working for all Californians.” Similarly, homeowners across the country face constricting options that are growing more expensive. 

Why are insurers leaving high-risk areas?

Climate change plays a significant role, but another key, immediate factor, according to the insurance industry, is the cost of housing. As home prices have lurched upward, other associated costs also increased.

In 2022, insurers paid out about $1.03 in claims for every $1 collected in premiums, according to a report by analytics company Verisk and the American Property Casualty Insurance Association. The industry’s payments and costs increased by 14.1% while premiums grew by 8.3%. 

“The boom in home values is really the biggest cost driver impacting insurance rates,” says Robert Gordon, policy and research expert at the association.

Similarly, Verisk sees a mix of factors at play. In a 2022 report, it said insured losses from natural catastrophes during the most recent five years were roughly double those of the half-decade before that. The reasons cited in the report included climate change and shifting regulations, but listed first was “a rise in exposure values and replacement costs, represented both by continued construction in high-hazard areas as well as high levels of inflation that are driving up repair costs.”

Marco Bello/Reuters

People carry a tree branch in the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia, in Perry, Florida, Aug. 30, 2023.

“So in other words,” says Mr. Gordon, “it’s just the demographic changes as people are purchasing and moving into much more expensive properties in environmentally sensitive areas.”

But the costs are no justification for abandoning homeowners, says Carmen Balber, executive director of Consumer Watchdog, a consumer advocacy organization based in California. “That’s why Californians have paid $150 billion in home insurance premiums over the last 25 years,” she says. “So the industry would be there when we need them most.”

How does climate change affect home insurance?

Climate scientists say Earth’s warming temperatures are increasing the severity of extreme weather, alongside other factors that have pushed up the cost of natural disasters.  

A recent survey by the Insurance Information Institute shows 32% of homeowners have been impacted by weather in the last five years. Weather events – from fire to wind to hail – cause the vast majority of property claims. Yet, insurers have long excluded high-risk events from policies. Congress established the National Flood Insurance Program in 1968 because most insurers excluded flood protection – and still do. 

Earthquakes are excluded from standard policies, requiring supplemental coverage. Despite the fact that six of the 10 costliest U.S. earthquakes have happened in California, only 10% of the state’s homeowners carry earthquake coverage.

“Insurance companies would like to only insure the least risky people and leave the more risky people out to the periphery so they can keep only the most profitable policies and leave the ones they might have to pay on to others,” says Ms. Balber.

Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP/File

A firefighter hoses down hot spots from a home that burned in a coastal wildfire in Laguna Niguel, California, May 12, 2022. Two insurance industry giants are pulling out of the state, citing wildfire risks and soaring construction costs.

But the insurance industry doesn’t cause rate changes, says Mr. Gordon, nor does it tell people where to live.

The frequency of climate disasters is compounded by the migration of people moving to areas with the highest risk. National realtor Redfin reports more people are moving into disaster-prone areas than out of them. Eight of the 10 high-flood-risk counties that saw the largest net influx are on the Florida coast. And in Riverside, California, where more homes face wildfire risks than any other county analyzed, nearly 40,000 more people have moved in than out. 

The insurance industry offers valuable pricing signals in those areas – like a canary in a coal mine, says Mr. Gordon. “Those nicer homes and the inflation and climate change are making it more expensive to live in environmentally sensitive areas,” he says. “You have to realize that, as people decide where they want to live, the costs and the risks in that are part of those considerations.”

What happens when homeowners lose coverage? 

Those homeowners still have access to insurance. Their first step is to shop the remaining companies for a new policy. For consumers who are unable to find or afford a policy, each state offers its own version of a FAIR plan – Fair Access to Insurance Requirements. Some states run those plans themselves; others outsource the plans to private insurers.  

FAIR plans have been around since 1968 and offer policies of last resort. They are generally more expensive than regular insurance policies, and coverage tends to target catastrophic events. 

Reducing risks before catastrophe strikes helps everyone. Communities can take steps to reduce harm from storms by investing in infrastructure to manage floodwaters or drought. And individuals can do things like home-hardening – using fire-resistant building materials – and clearing flammable debris to drastically reduce fire risks. 

About 66% of American households own their home – and 88% of homeowners carry insurance. For those 12% who either can’t afford or choose not to insure their home, fallout can be substantial. “If we can’t insure our home, then we can’t sell our home. It ripples into the real estate market. It ripples into the tourism market,” says Ms. Balber. “So the consequences of that are serious.”

Last year, California became the first state to require insurers to offer discounts to homeowners who make their properties safer from wildfires.

An insurance crisis is avoidable, says Ms. Balber. “We all know that another fire is going to hit, but that’s what the industry is here for. And we need to be investing in the meantime in reducing the risk so we don’t reach the breaking point.”

Courtesy of Ben Hodge

Members of the Panther Anti-Racist Union gather outside Central York High School in York, Pennsylvania, last spring while advocating for the school board to reverse a book ban and change a district policy.

Deliliah Neff knows Nixa, the southwestern Missouri city where she is growing up, has some cultural limitations.

Located in Christian County, the city has roughly 24,000 residents, who are overwhelmingly white. So the 17-year-old has turned to literature to fill in those gaps. But a book she is currently reading – “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” a series of personal essays about race and LGBTQ+ issues by George M. Johnson – no longer lives on the shelves of her high school library. She received it as a Christmas gift.

“Hearing about these stories from authors of color, it’s really important for me, especially because when I go to college, I want to leave Nixa and venture out,” she says.

The Nixa School Board voted to remove it last year. Since then, other books have been pulled or restricted, but not without pushback from the community’s teenage readers. Nixa Students Against Book Restrictions (SABR), a grassroots-style group, has rallied to keep its school library’s collection intact.

Fueled largely by parental demands and new state legislation, school book bans increased 28% during the first semester of the 2022-23 academic year compared with the prior six months, according to an analysis by PEN America, a group promoting free expression. Many of the challenged titles are written by or about people of color or those within the LGBTQ+ community, or address race, racism, gender, or sexuality.

In response, California lawmakers are considering a bill that would require a two-thirds majority vote from a school board or governing body before banning any instructional materials, textbooks, or curriculum.

Courtesy of Ben Hodge

A sign displays one of the main slogans used by the Panther Anti-Racist Union student group as it sought to overturn a book ban earlier this year in York, Pennsylvania.

The situation has inspired the latest iteration of youth activism, drawing students to school board meetings and peaceful protests, where they have advocated for their right to read a diverse set of books. They’re offering a counternarrative to discussions that, in many places, have featured hostile exchanges between adults against the backdrop of broader culture wars. 

For them, it has been less about entering the fray and more about amplifying student perspective.

“These are the books that are in our schools and our libraries,” says Thomasina Brown, a senior at Nixa High School and member of Nixa SABR. “And we felt that we weren’t being heard.”

“A step in the right direction”

Upperclassmen started the group when book challenges made their way to Nixa during the 2021-22 school year, and now, students including Deliliah and Thomasina are carrying it forward. The group leaders regularly post on an Instagram account, letting fellow students know about upcoming board meetings, school board elections, and ways to address book bans. Among the recommendations: creating free little libraries, forming book clubs, and, of course, attending board meetings.

The movement is entirely student-led, in part because they’re hesitant to ask a teacher to serve as an adviser. 

“We don’t want to put them in a position where they have to tell us no, even if they do agree with us,” Thomasina, who is 16, says.

Courtesy of Thomasina Brown

Glennis Woosley (left), Thomasina Brown (center), and Deliliah Neff (right) are members of Nixa Students Against Book Restrictions. They've been attending school board meetings and speaking out about book challenges in the Nixa, Missouri, school district.

Last year, Missouri legislators passed a law that includes an amendment putting school librarians and educators at risk of criminal prosecution if they provide “explicit sexual material” to a student. Nixa’s school board president, Joshua Roberts, says staff members flagged several books for evaluation because of the new state law. The other book challenges came from parents or community members.

Despite the students’ efforts, the school board in June voted to remove three books (“Blankets” by Craig Thompson; “Something Happened in Our Town” by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard; and a graphic novel adaptation of “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood) and restrict two more by requiring parental permission (“Lucky” by Alice Sebold and “Empire of Storms” by Sarah Maas).

A parent who spoke at the June meeting in support of removing certain books said they “contain obscene, sexually explicit content or provoke racial division,” according to a report from the Springfield News-Leader.

The board also decided to retain “Maus,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel by Art Spiegelman, without restrictions. It did the same for “Unpregnant” by Jenni Hendriks and Ted Caplan after board members could not reach a majority vote in June and again in July.

When board members explained why they voted a certain way, they cited some of the points made by students. Thomasina considered that progress and a sign of more civil dialogue.

“It took a while for that to actually happen, but it felt like a step in the right direction,” she says. “We aren’t being completely seen or maybe understood, but at least we’re being heard to some extent.”

Preserving a path to empathy

The Panther Anti-Racist Union (PARU), a student group at Central York High School in Pennsylvania, persuaded its school board to go a step further: The board overturned a ban on several books in the school library and created a new policy, which allows parents to bar their own children from reading certain books without revoking them for the entire student body.

Courtesy of Ben Hodge

Members of the Panther Anti-Racist Union gather in May 2023 in York, Pennsylvania. The group has helped persuade its school board to overturn a ban on several books and to create a new policy, which allows parents to bar their own children from reading certain books without revoking them for all students.

It was the second time the board has reversed course on such a decision. About two years earlier, also under pressure from students, the board undid a ban on resource materials about diversity and racial justice that staff members had gathered following the murder of George Floyd.

Mandy Wang, who is 17 and a PARU member, says students rallied outside the high school for weeks and also attended school board meetings. A concern for future generations fueled her motivation: She wants to ensure that her 6-year-old brother can continue reading books by diverse authors and learn about other communities and cultures as a result.

“With reading,” she says, “you become better at showing empathy and being able to empathize.”

Fellow PARU member, 15-year-old Brezlyn Koller, considers the policy change a fair compromise because it doesn’t take away other students’ rights to read a book. One of her favorite novels, “Push” by Sapphire, tells the story of a 16-year-old girl who has been abused and sexually assaulted. Brezlyn understands the subject matter may not be easy for others to digest.

“It’s a hard story to read, and it’s not for everyone,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean you can just take it out of a library.”

Ben Hodge and Patricia A. Jackson, who teach at Central York High School and serve as faculty advisers for PARU, credit their students with setting and controlling the narrative, dispelling misinformation along the way. Their advice to students: Keep at it.

“I’m always saying to the kids that it’s good to be vigilant in the turbulent times,” Ms. Jackson says. “But you have to be equally as vigilant in the quiet times.”

Throughout the history of the United States, youth activism has injected energy, exuberance, and optimism into social movements, which have helped sustain and keep them going, says Matthew Diemer, a professor of education and psychology at the University of Michigan. He sees opportunities for students to band together and form coalitions around their shared interests.

“I think it’s important to be active at the local level, but perhaps that can coalesce into something more regional or national,” he says.

Students at every board meeting 

Back in Nixa, the school board wants students to be a permanent fixture at every board meeting going forward, says Mr. Roberts, the elected body’s president. This school year, a student representative from the high school – chosen without input from the board – will have dedicated speaking time at each meeting. Students can also continue to speak during the public comment periods. 

Mr. Roberts says the students, unlike some adults who engaged in name-calling and other unruly behavior, brought a calming, mature presence to the discussions.

“There was zero hostility that came out of the students,” he says. “They were perfect. They always have been.”

Deliliah expects additional book challenges this school year, so she’s gearing up for more activism. Until then, she is focused on finishing “All Boys Aren’t Blue.”

“I think it’s a really good book,” she says, “and there are a lot of life lessons in there.”

Reuters

Chile's President Gabriel Boric puts his arm around a relative of a missing person during an Aug. 30 announcement in Santiago that the government plans to search for the remains of those who were "disappeared" during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.

Chile reached a turning point Wednesday in its long quest to seek healing after a massive injustice. President Gabriel Boric formally launched the country’s first plan to find the remains of more than 1,000 people who went missing during the 1973-1990 military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

In the more than three decades since the restoration of democracy, the remains of only 307 of the disappeared have been recovered, leaving many families alone to find the truth of what happened to their loved ones. Chile’s new approach acknowledges the state’s responsibility in dismantling the lies that have insulated the perpetrators of those abuses from accountability.

“The state has to be responsible for finding the truth,” Mr. Boric said in signing a decree formalizing the plan. “This is not a favor to the families. It is a duty to society as a whole to deliver the answers the country deserves and needs.”

In the past half-century, as many as 70 countries emerging from conflict or violent authoritarian regimes have created commissions or other models to promote justice by seeking transparency about past atrocities. Those experiments have entrenched the idea of truth-telling as vital in restoring society. South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, for example, offered perpetrators of politically motivated crimes during the apartheid era amnesty for full disclosure. Yet no prosecutions ever followed for those who failed to come forward.

Soon after Chile restored its democracy, the government did set up the world’s first truth commission to probe the Pinochet era and seek national reconciliation. The commission panel’s report and subsequent government audits ultimately estimated that roughly 40,000 people had suffered state violence, including those who disappeared or are known to have been killed by security forces. Despite such findings, the government at the time declined to pursue criminal actions against those implicated. That decision reinforced a culture of impunity in the police and military forces, first set out in a 1978 law during the Pinochet dictatorship that gave soldiers and officials blanket amnesty.

In the past decade, a few private lawsuits have chipped away at that impunity. Families “have put the objectivity of their suffering at the service of the fight for truth and justice, the only way – I believe – to truly rebuild a country and provide the best for its people,” said Almudena Bernabeu, a Chilean human rights lawyer, in an address at the University of California, Berkeley in 2016. “The challenge for all societies, including that of Chile, is to not desire or perpetuate a power that is based on lies, but to dare to build an inclusive society that can overcome them.”

This first attempt by Chile to recover lost loved ones marks a start for the families and all of society to combine the truth about the disappeared with, perhaps, forgiveness. A national healing has begun.