Kast Government Cuts Culture Ministry Budget by 9.81% — Museum of Memory and Memory Sites Targeted

The Kast administration finalized a 9.81% budget cut to the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage — the steepest proportional cut to any ministry in the 2026 supplementary budget round. The cut directly impacts: the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Museum of Memory), which loses approximately CLP $400 million; the Parque por la Paz Villa Grimaldi (the former DINA torture center turned peace park), whose maintenance and educational programming budget is slashed; itinerant memory exhibitions touring regional cities; and the general operational budgets of the 20+ memory site organizations that receive Culture Ministry co-funding. The Red Nacional de Sitios de Memoria (National Network of Memory Sites) formally rejected the cuts in a public statement, warning that some smaller organizations would be forced to close. The Museo de la Memoria, which had won the prestigious King of Spain Human Rights Prize in Madrid just eight days earlier, described the cuts as a direct contradiction of the international recognition Chile had just received. Critics noted that the cuts come as the Kast government's Human Rights Subsecretariat program is simultaneously being zeroed out in the 2027 budget proposal, creating a coordinated defunding of Chile's entire institutional memory infrastructure.