THE Chilean government said yesterday that it will launch a search plan for those people who went missing during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

Chilean Minister of Justice Luis Cordero said the government was planning to put in place reparations not only to the families of the victims, but also to society.

The National Search Plan for Detainees Disappeared is set to be launched today by the government.

The whereabouts of some 1,192 detainees who went missing during Pinochet’s dictatorship is still unknown.

More than 3,200 people were murdered or disappeared during his 17 years in power. Hundreds of families still do not know the whereabouts of their relatives.

The search programme will bring together work already carried out by truth commissions, courts of justice, relatives of victims and previous governments.

Mr Cordero said the objective of the plan is to know the conditions and circumstances under which the arrests and forced disappearances occurred throughout the dictatorial regime.

The launch of the search plan comes ahead of the 50th anniversary of the US-backed coup against then-president Salvador Allende on September 11, which is remembered as one of the darkest moments in the history of the South American country.