Word: bachelet
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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International copper prices rose markedly earlier in this decade. Instead of spending the funds on projects of near-term political value, Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet and Finance Minister Andrés Velasco (the latter on leave from the Kennedy School) took the lead to create an investment fund that would not be tapped for ongoing operational expenses. The fund could be used to help the Chilean economy avoid an economic collapse; when the worldwide financial crisis broke out 18 months ago, the Chilean government was ready with a countercyclical budget—it spent to cushion...
...second important decision of the Bachelet government was to invest billions from this fund in the development of the skills and capacities of its people. On September 3, 2008, the Bachelet administration established procedures for its Bicentennial System to Train Advanced Human Capital Abroad (“bicentennial” because it marks Chile’s declaration of independence in 1810). This program, known as “Becas Chile,” is on scholarships...
...young woman, Bachelet coped with her father’s kidnapping, torture, and death. This came at the hands of the rightist authoritarian regime of Pinochet. Shortly thereafter, she and her mother were also captured, tortured, imprisoned, and eventually exiled. She returned to Chile, finished her medical studies, and, after a distinguished career of public service in health and defense, became the first female president of Chile—making her story yet more extraordinary. As a former political prisoner herself, her empathy and compassion might go hand in hand with her politics. But this is not the case...
...past. Recently, there has been a deplorable wave of political suppression in Cuba. The state has continued to silence people that they have labeled “counterrevolutionary dissidents”—people that Chile and the United States would call productive citizens. When President Bachelet visited Cuba, she put Chile’s reputation at risk. She has categorically failed to distinguish between a dictatorship of the right—the Pinochet regime of which she was a victim and staunchly opposed—and an equally despicable dictatorship of the left...
...Decision-making within sovereign states like Chile greatly impacts hemispheric affairs. Bachelet has passed on the opportunity to send a positive message to transnational institutions like the Organization of American States, which have explicitly sought democratic goals. Politicians will not find integrity in positive change for their own nations unless they are ready to advocate that change for all others. As President Bachelet writes her legacy, this chapter will be one that sacrifices the dignity of her diplomacy and ironically makes her a challenge to democracy in Latin America...