Michelle Bachelet
Many Chileans were not enthused upon Michelle Bachelet's appointment to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and with good reason. Twice President of Chile, between 2006-2010 and 2014-2018, Bachelet joined the list of presidents who, since the transition to democracy, upheld Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship legacy in her politics.
Bachelet is no stranger to dictatorship tactics. Her father, General Alberto Bachelet,
died of torture at the hands of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) in 1974. Bachelet and her mother were detained and tortured at Villa Grimaldi; in a statement in 2013, she had
revealed that her torturer was none other than DINA Chief Manuel Contreras.
When politics is divested of memory, the cycle of human rights violations is guaranteed. Just a week after the protests erupted in Chile, with Chileans facing military violence for taking to the streets and demanding an end to the dictatorship constitution, as well as President Sebastian Piñera's resignation, Bachelet issued a weak statement in her capacity as UNHRC Chief.
"There needs to be open and sincere dialogue by all actors concerned to help resolve this situation, including a profound examination of the wide range of socio-economic issues underlying the current crisis," Bachelet
stated.
The statement is misleading on several levels.
Primarily, open and sincere dialogue cannot happen with a government that approves dictatorship tactics in a democracy, no matter how flawed the democratic implementation is. Secondly, Bachelet is wrong in defining the nation-wide protests as "the current crisis". This is an ongoing crisis which the democratic transition refused to tackle; like other governments,
Bachelet played a role in preserving the neoliberal project unleashed upon Chile by the US-backed military coup.
Comment: RFE/RL quotes one Iranian official's response to the report: This is the real reason Iran is considered an enemy by the U.S. and Israel - because they are formidable. If Iran were weak, they wouldn't matter so much, but because they have successfully built up their military power, they are deemed a threat. Israel cannot practice absolute hegemony in the region, and the U.S. cannot control Iran and thus protect Israel. The only reason Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization is because they are a threat to Israel. Iran's 'effective power' is also the reason why the U.S. has yet to attack them as they did Iraq - a war with Iran would not be a cakewalk.