英语名人堂：维罗妮卡·米歇尔·巴切莱特·赫里亚

维罗妮卡·米歇尔·巴切莱特·赫里亚(英语:Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria，西班牙语:Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria) (1951年9月29日——)智利女医生、外交家、政治家、历史上首位女总统。巴切莱特1951年出生于圣地亚哥一军人家庭，1970年前往智利大学医学院进修医学，同年加入智利社会党，1975年遭军政府逮捕，后被驱逐出境，流亡澳大利亚、东德。1979年返回智利，继续在智利大学攻读医学，毕业后成为一名儿科医生，1995年当选为智利社会党中央委员会成员，后前往智利军队政治和战略研究院和美洲防务学校进修军事，1998年担任国防部长顾问，2000年～2002年担任卫生部长，2002年～2004年担任国防部长，是为智利第一位女性国防部长。2006年作为民主联盟候选人当选为智利总统，成为智利首位女性总统，任期4年，2010年卸任，后被联合国秘书长任命为联合国妇女署执行主任，2013年辞去主任职务，2014年再度当选为总统，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.