Home > Dr. Michelle Bachelet likely Victor In Chile’s Dec. 11 Presidential Election

Dr. Michelle Bachelet likely Victor In Chile’s Dec. 11 Presidential Election

by Open-Publishing - Tuesday 6 December 2005
5 comments

Elections-Elected South/Latin America

by Brian McAfee

Chile’s Socialist party’s presidential candidate, Dr Michelle Bachelet, stands poised to be the next president of Chile. She has a significant lead in the polls, and if there is a run-off election she is expected to still be the victor. Her closest opponent, Joaquin Lavin, a conservative, trails well behind her.

Dr Bachelet endured numerous personal tragedies in the years of Pinochet’s coup. Her father, Alberto Bachelet, an airforce general loyal to president Salvador Allende, was tortured to death in 1974 by DINA, Pinochet’s secret police. In 1975 both then 23 year old medical student, Michelle Bachelet, and her mother, Angela Jeria, were kidnapped from their home by a gang of DINA men. Both were tortured and deprived of food and water. Because of intervention by some top military officials, the two women escaped execution and were instead exiled to Australia Under the junta. Many women and girls were raped, tortured, and executed. Most of the perpetrators remain unpunished.

Bachelet and her mother spent almost 5 years in Australia, then she returned to Chile to do clandestine human rights work. She also became a medical doctor. Democracy was restored in Chile in 1988. As a politically active outspoken critic of the U.S. supported facist dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, Bachelet became president Ricardo Lagos’s choice to head the national ministry of health. She served in this capacity from March of 2000 then in a stunning move, President Lagos appointed her defense minister in 2002. As a former victim of military crimes, this move signaled a complete overhaul of Chile’s military establishment.

While she endorsed efforts to prosecute officers for their crimes against the civilian population, she obtained and continues to have the respect of the majority of the military and their families. There were over 3,000 murdered by the junta during the Pinochet years, a national wound that has not yet healed. "There was a group of Pinochet supporters who thought when the wives of the disappeared died off, the problem will die with it," Bachelet said, "But their children and grandchildren have taken up the flag."

Despite the harsh realities of the past, the current president Ricardo Lagos as well as his likely successor

Forum posts

  • Good choice Chile. But watch out. American troops and murder gangs might be already plan something evil.

    • One of those who sang about better days to come
      and wrote this song:

      Stand up, look at the mountains
      source of the wind, the sun, the water.
      you who change the course of rivers,
      who, with the seed, sow the flight of your soul,
      Stand up, look at your hands,
      Give to your hand to your brother so you can grow.
      We’ll go together, united by blood,
      Today is the day
      we can make the future.
      Deliver us from the master who keeps us
      in misery.
      Thy kingdom of justice and equality come.
      Blow, like the wind blows the wild flowers
      of the mountain pass.
      Clean the barrel of my gun like fire
      Thy will be done at last on earth
      give us your strength and courage to struggle.
      Blow, like the wind blows the wild flowers
      of the mountain pass.
      Clean the barrel of my gun like fire
      Stand up, look at your hands,
      Give to your hand to your brother so you can grow.
      We’ll go together, united by blood,
      Now and in the hour of our death.
      amen, amen, amen. Amen

      Finally, the military brought Victor Jara and other political prisoners to the Stadium of Chile, the place where the concert for Allende has previously been held. There the military men tortured and killed many people. They broke Victor Jara’s hands so that he couldn’t play his guitar, and then taunted him to try and sing and play his songs. Even under these horrible tortures, Victor Jara magnificently sang a portion of the song of the Popular Unity party. After this, he received many brutal blows, and finally was brutally killed with a machine gun and carried to a mass grave

      And of course we should not forget it was Henry Kissinger that played a major role in the over throw of Salvador Allende.

      cheers, jt

    • We are lookig for people from Ovalle,Chile arround the world.
      If you are one... visit http://www.ovallecity.cl
      thanks

    • http://www.ovallecity.cl

    • yes there is a website called OvalleCity

      The City Ovalle is in

      visit http://www.ovallecity.cl

      the content is in spanish