Forced disappearances in Chile (1973-1989) | R-Bloggers

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This is perhaps my most polemic blog post so far. Between 1973 and 1989, 1,093 Chileans were violently disappeared by the state. This message is intended to shed light on this dark chapter of history.

For people who read this blog outside of Chile, on September 11, we commemorate the victims of the dictatorship. It started with the military coup in 1973, which led to widespread human rights violations, including forced disappearances.

As a member of the R -community, I am extremely happy that I am a member of a community that emphasizes the principle ‘be friendly for each other’. Before 11 September 1973, it is true that the socialist government, led by President Salvador Allende, implemented a gloomy economic policy that led to hyperinflation and shortages of basic goods, facts that do not justify the subsequent violations of human rights.

I wanted to post this message about scraping social media and what people comment 52 years after these events. What I found online was a direct denial of the Golden Rule: “That what you are hateful for you do not do your neighbor”. I found countless remarks that justified the actions of the dictatorship or traced the seriousness of human rights violations.

The coup started with an air force that destroyed the Government Palace in Santiago de Chile.

After the coup, the military junta, led by General Augusto Pinochet, changed the circulating coins with coins with “Liberty” registered, a stark contrast to what happened when we consider that freedom is “absence of (random) coercion”.

I downloaded the data from the Museo de la Memoria y Los Dereechos Humanos, who contains information about the victims of forced disappearances during the dictatorship.

library(readxl)
library(janitor)
library(dplyr)
library(lubridate)
library(stringr)
library(ggplot2)

url <- "https://interactivos.museodelamemoria.cl/victims/?page_id=7670&exportar_entradas_dd=true"
file <- "2025/09/11/desaparecidos.xlsx"

if (!file.exists(file)) {
  download.file(url, destfile = file, mode = "wb")
}

Then I cleaned up the data to make two suddenly:

1. Year of arrest and disappearance
2. Age of arrest and disappearance

desaparecidos <- read_excel(file) %>%
    clean_names()

arrest_year <- desaparecidos %>%
    select(fecha_detencion_muerte) %>%
    mutate(year = as.integer(str_sub(fecha_detencion_muerte, -4, -1)))

arrest_year %>%
    filter(is.na(year))

arrest_year <- arrest_year %>%
    group_by(year) %>%
    count()

desaparecidos %>%
    distinct(edad)

arrest_age <- desaparecidos %>%
    select(edad) %>%
    mutate(
        age = case_when(
            str_detect(edad, "meses") ~ "1 - Less than 1",
            edad <= 18 ~ "2 - 18 of less",
            edad > 18 & edad <= 30 ~ "3 - 19 - 30",
            edad > 30 & edad <= 50 ~ "4 - 31 - 50",
            edad > 50 & edad <= 70 ~ "5 - 51 - 70",
            edad > 70 ~ "6 - 71 or more",
            TRUE ~ "7 - Unknown"
        )
    ) %>%
    group_by(age) %>%
    count()

The first plot shows the number of arrests and disappearances per year:

ggplot(arrest_year, aes(x = year, y = n)) +
    geom_col(fill = "#c95555") +
    labs(
        title = "Year of Arrest and Disappearance",
        subtitle = "Source: Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos",
        x = "Year",
        y = "Number of Arrests"
    ) +
    theme_minimal(base_size = 13)

The second plot shows the age distribution of arrests and disappearances:

ggplot(arrest_age, aes(x = age, y = n)) +
    geom_col(fill = "#c95555") +
    labs(
        title = "Age of Arrest and Disappearance",
        subtitle = "Source: Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos",
        x = "Age Group",
        y = "Number of Arrests"
    ) +
    theme_minimal(base_size = 13) +
    theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 30, hjust = 1))

The only case of the disappeared baby was not a typo. An eight -month -old baby was violently disappeared with her family.

The data set and code for this message are available on Girub With information about the age, occupation, political party (if present) and year of arrest or disappearance.

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