New UN human rights chief survived torture, lived in exile
Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet was 23 years old when she was tortured and fled her country’s dictatorship into exile. Now, more than four decades later, she will face her past fighting such abuses worldwide as the new UN human rights chief.
Bachelet, 66, is often seen smiling, chatting easily or tossing unplanned comments or jokes into her speeches. But behind her good humour lie haunting memories of the brutal dictatorship that tore her family apart.
Her father, air force Gen Alberto Bachelet, died in 1974 following months of torture in prison. Gen Augusto Pinochet’s military had convicted him of being a traitor for opposing the 1973 military coup that ousted President Salvador Allende. Bachelet herself was arrested along with her mother in 1975.
She was a young member of the Socialist Party, and her time in a secret prison was an ordeal that she prefers not to talk about, saying only in her autobiography that she suffered “physical hardships.”
Using the family’s political connections, she went into exile in Australia and the former East Germany. There she reunited with her thenpartner, Jaime Lopez.
At age 25, Lopez became one of the leaders of the Socialist Party that had seen many of its members tortured, killed or forcibly disappeared by Chile’s military dictatorship. He returned to Chile, but only briefly because he feared he would be captured by Pinochet’s agents.
Back in Europe, Bachelet reminded him of the importance of committing to the cause and her father’s sacrifice, according to Bachelet. The Unofficial Story, by Javier Ortega and Andrea Insunza.
“My dad died because he was consistent. I expect nothing less from you,” the book says Bachelet told her thenboyfriend. When he followed her advice, Lopez was captured in Chile. Under torture, he gave Pinochet’s secret police information on other members of the Socialist Party, before he became one of the about 1,000 people who were forcibly disappeared during the dictatorship.