Santiago de Chile, December 7 (teleSUR-RHC)-- The Chilean government launched a campaign on Sunday to help kick off the process of rewriting the South American country’s 1980 constitution with civic education around the reform.

The campaign aims to communicate the constitutional reform to a wide audience by focusing on the process’ central themes of freedom, democracy, and equality, among others concepts.

The reforms seek to update the 1980 Chilean constitution, introduced under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
   
Pinochet came to power after a U.S.-backed coup on September 11, 1973, that removed democratically-elected President Salvador Allende.  Pinochet’s bloody regime ruled until 1990, during which time over 3,000 people were murdered and tens of thousands tortured and disappeared as part of Operation Condor that sought to suppress left-wing movements across the continent.

Chile’s educational campaign ahead of the constitutional changes will continue until March and a series of dialogues through a process called Grassroots Citizens for a New Constitution will compile proposals to present to the government in late 2016. 

Officials plan to draft the text of the new constitution by early 2017.  Parliament has yet to determine the mechanism by which the new constitution will be approved.