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NEWS & LETTERS, April-May 2006Our Life and Times by Kevin A. Barry and Mitch WeerthChile under BacheletMichelle Bachelet, the first woman to be elected president of Chile, was inaugurated March 11. She considers herself a "socialist," but insists she "wears many hats" and makes no claim of intending to antagonize relations with the U.S. by asserting more state control over the economy. Bachelet's father was an official in the Allende government until the 1973 coup, then was jailed , tortured, and died in prison. Bachelet and her mother received similar treatment but were then allowed to leave the country for exile. She returned in 1979 and became a doctor. She served as health minister, then defense minister, under the outgoing president Ricardo Lagos. Her cabinet of 20 will include ten women. Women's groups hope that she will push through improvements in the laws on reproductive rights, but a major difficulty is that the legislature continues to have only 10% women, a sad legacy of the 15 years of post-Pinochet governments. Bachelet's close identification with the economic restructuring begun during the dictatorship, which has created one of the sharpest divides between rich and poor of any Latin American nation, meant that her campaign garnered very little enthusiasm among the youth despite the fact that she was up against the billionaire businessman Sebastian Pinera. In addition to having to prove that her "socialism" will mean something for the poor, Bachelet will be challenged to help the Mapuche indigenous people and their supporters in their battles against corporate timber interests in the south of the country. A draconian "anti-terrorist" law promulgated under Pinochet has been used against the Mapuche in recent years to dissuade them from destroying timber company property. Supporters like the lawyer Myriam Reyes Garcia are facing legal battles themselves for standing up for them. |
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