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Chile'snew woman president, NYT, 17 January 2006

A victim of Chile's past becomes its future
By Larry Rohter The New York Times
TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2006

SANTIAGO Michelle Bachelet, who was just elected president of this male-dominated, prosperous and deeply religious country of 16 million, is a woman and an agnostic, a guitar-strumming child of the 1960s, a former exile who spent part of her childhood in the United States, and a physician who had never before held elective office.
Running as a Socialist on a platform that promised "change with continuity" and showcased her warmth and longstanding concern for ordinary people, Bachelet, a fair-haired, vibrant 54-year-old, won more than 53 percent of the vote on Sunday, according to the official tally. She made few promises beyond "social inclusion" - vowing to better meet the needs of women and the poor - and preserving Chile's close ties with the United States as well as the country's dynamic economy when she takes office March 11.
But Bachelet has other qualities that explain how, in barely a decade, she has gone from being a pediatrician at a humble, underfinanced clinic here to the first woman to be her country's chief of state, and one of only a handful of women elected to lead any country in the Americas.
Some of those qualities are personal, while others stem from her real and symbolic connections to Chile's recent history. She is a toughened survivor of the Pinochet dictatorship, which was responsible for her father's death, her imprisonment, torture and exile, and she embodies for many Chile's painful reconciliation with those dark years.
"Violence came into my life and wrecked it," Bachelet said Sunday night, in an impassioned victory speech to a jubilant crowd gathered on the main downtown avenue here. "I was a victim of hatred, and I have dedicated my life to reversing that hatred."
Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria was born in Santiago on Sept. 29, 1951, the second child of an air force officer who rose to a general's rank and a housewife who became an archaeologist. Her early years were spent in the restrictive but sheltering environment of the Chilean Armed Forces, moving from one military base to another.
In 1962, her father, Alberto Bachelet Martinez, was assigned to the military mission at the Chilean Embassy in Washington.
Friends and relatives recall that the pre-adolescent Bachelet was shocked by the racial segregation in America and by the assassination of John F. Kennedy. She returned to Chile with her family at the end of 1963, only to encounter all the other influences that would mark the '60s generation, from the Beatles to the debate over the war in Vietnam and the May 1968 uprising of students in France.
"We were teenagers immersed in the political and social movements that were transforming Chile and the world," said a cousin, Alicia Galdames, with whom Bachelet formed a folk duo whose repertoire included songs of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. "The seeds of her ideals were planted in this period."
Bachelet's enrollment in college coincided with the start here of the leftist Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende. She studied medicine at her father's urging and joined the youth wing of the Socialist Party. Colleagues remember her as holding views that were moderate for an era that became the most polarized in Chilean history.
"She was really studious, very disciplined and responsible and sure of herself, but with a tremendous capacity for empathy," said Gladys Cuevas, a fellow student and close friend. "It was a time of black and white, but she managed to get along with everybody, no matter what their political persuasion."
With food shortages growing in Chile and a black market developing, her father was loaned by the air force to the Allende government and put in charge of food rationing and distribution, where he worked closely with the Socialists and other leftists. When General Augusto Pinochet led the coup that overthrew the Allende government on Sept. 11, 1973, the military viewed General Bachelet with suspicion. Spurning a chance to go into exile, he was jailed, and in March 1974, after months of torture, died in prison of a heart attack.
Months later, both Bachelet and her mother were detained and sent to Villa Grimaldi, one of the most notorious of the Pinochet dictatorship's secret prisons. While there, Bachelet was also subjected to physical and psychological torture - being hit during interrogations, blindfolded and tied to a chair for long periods, and told that her mother would be executed.
Bachelet and her mother were eventually freed and went into exile in 1975, first in Australia, where her older brother Alberto had moved, and then, after a few months, to East Germany, at the request of the Socialist Party directorate, which wanted them to take part in Chile solidarity campaigns in Europe.
Initially, Bachelet worked as a hospital orderly and lived with her mother in a small apartment in Potsdam. But she resumed her medical studies at Humboldt University in East Berlin after she became proficient in German.
While in exile, Bachelet married Jorge Davalos, an architect and fellow exile, and gave birth to the first of her three children, Jorge Sebastian Alberto, now 27. The marriage ended in the mid-1980s, after a second child, Francisca, 21, was born here. Bachelet has not married again, though she has a third child, Sofia, 13, from a now-lapsed relationship with a doctor.
Upon her return to Chile in 1979, as the expulsion order against her mother was being lifted, Bachelet finished medical school, specializing in pediatrics and public health. Though she graduated near the top of her class, her family name and political affiliations made it difficult for her to find employment. She ended up working at a clinic financed by Sweden that treated children from families that had been victims of torture and political repression.
She remained there through the rest of the Pinochet dictatorship, which ended in 1990 after elections put in power the center-left coalition that still governs the country. In 1994, after having worked in AIDS and epidemiological programs, she became an adviser to the Ministry of Health. But she retained her familial fascination with military affairs, and in 1996 she enrolled in a program in strategic studies at the national war college.
Bachelet excelled there, and was invited to study at the Inter-American Defense College in Washington. She did so in 1997, and after her return, she went to work in the Defense Ministry and was also elected to the political commission of the Socialist Party, specializing in defense and military issues.