英語名人堂：維羅妮卡·米歇爾·巴切萊特·赫里亞

維羅妮卡·米歇爾·巴切萊特·赫里亞(英語:Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria，西班牙語:Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria) (1951年9月29日——)智利女醫(yī)生、外交家、政治家、歷史上首位女總統(tǒng)。巴切萊特1951年出生于圣地亞哥一軍人家庭，1970年前往智利大學(xué)醫(yī)學(xué)院進(jìn)修醫(yī)學(xué)，同年加入智利社會黨，1975年遭軍政府逮捕，后被驅(qū)逐出境，流亡澳大利亞、東德。1979年返回智利，繼續(xù)在智利大學(xué)攻讀醫(yī)學(xué)，畢業(yè)后成為一名兒科醫(yī)生，1995年當(dāng)選為智利社會黨中央委員會成員，后前往智利軍隊(duì)政治和戰(zhàn)略研究院和美洲防務(wù)學(xué)校進(jìn)修軍事，1998年擔(dān)任國防部長顧問，2000年～2002年擔(dān)任衛(wèi)生部長，2002年～2004年擔(dān)任國防部長，是為智利第一位女性國防部長。2006年作為民主聯(lián)盟候選人當(dāng)選為智利總統(tǒng)，成為智利首位女性總統(tǒng)，任期4年，2010年卸任，后被聯(lián)合國秘書長任命為聯(lián)合國婦女署執(zhí)行主任，2013年辭去主任職務(wù)，2014年再度當(dāng)選為總統(tǒng)，任期至2018年。

Michelle Bachelet was born in 1951. She is the first woman to become President of Chile. She won the 2006 election in a runoff, campaigning to help reduce the country’s huge gap between rich and poor. In 2008, ‘Time’ magazine ranked her fifteenth on its list of the world's 100 mostinfluential people. She is a qualified surgeon and speaks five languages fluently.

Bachelet was born in Santiago, Chile. Her mother was an archaeologist and her father was an air force officer. She spent most of her childhood traveling around Chile, living on different military bases. She attended a prestigious girls-only public school and excelled in her studies. She started studying medicine in 1970. She said: "It was a concrete way of helping people cope with pain."

Augusto Pinochet came to power in a 1973 coup and her life changed forever. Her father died in 1974 after months of daily torture. Bachelet and her mother were also tortured. In 1975, they were exiled to Australia. A year later she went to the German Democratic Republic, where she completed her medical studies and learnt German.

In 1979, Bachelet returned to Chile and helped children whose parents were being tortured by Pinochet’s government. She became a consultant for the World Health Organization. She also earned a Master’s in military science. In 2002 Bachelet became Latin America’s first female Defence Minister. Four years later, she became president. A record number of foreign heads of states attended her swearing in ceremony.