Torture survivor assumes U.N. post

SANTIAGO, Chile — 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 U.N. human rights chief.

Bachelet, 66, is often seen smiling, chatting easily or tossing unplanned comments or jokes into her speeches. But behind her good humor 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.”

She went into exile in Australia and the former East Germany.

Bachelet returned to Chile in 1979 when she felt she could do so safely. She studied medicine, specializing in pediatrics, and began working at an organization that helped children with mental health problems whose parents had been victims of the 1973-90 dictatorship.

Bachelet became a key player in the center-left coalition that dominated Chile’s government for almost 20 years after Pinochet lost power.

In her new post, she replaces Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, a member of Jordan’s royal family.