Portal:Chile/Selected biography - Wikipedia

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Portal:Chile/Selected biography/1 Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (November 25, 1915 – December 10, 2006) was de facto President of Chile from 1974 to 1990, and was the President of the Government Junta from 1973 to 1981. His dictatorial regime instituted a campaign against leftist political parties, including murder, torture, kidnapping and the repression of civil liberties. At the same time he implemented classical neoliberal economic policies including privatization and rollback of state welfare institutions.

On September 11, 1973, Pinochet, recently appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, was part of, along with the Navy, Air Force and National Police, a coup d'état against Socialist President Salvador Allende and established a military government. Pinochet implemented a series of military operations in which (according to the 1993 Rettig Report) approximately 3,000 people were killed, while (according to the 2004 Valech Report) 27,000 were incarcerated without trials and subjected to torture. Thousands more fled into exile, in particular to Argentina, as political refugees; however, they were followed in their exile by the DINA secret police, in the frame of Operation Condor which linked South American dictatorships together against political opponents.

In 1974, the junta appointed Pinochet president by a joint decree, later confirmed by a plebiscite in 1980. He remained in power until 1990, after his attempt to continue to rule was defeated in the 1988 plebiscite. After stepping down, he remained a life-senator, in accord with the 1980 Constitution. He was also Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army until March 10, 1998.

At the time of his death in December 2006, around 300 criminal charges were still pending against him in Chile for human rights abuses (torture, forced disappearance, assassination, etc.), tax evasion and embezzlement under his rule and afterwards — in 2006, Pinochet's total wealth was estimated at $28 million or more. Pinochet remains a controversial figure in many parts of the world, dividing people who condemn him for his human rights abuses from those who credit him with bringing order and economic stability to Chile.

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Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (born September 29, 1951) is a center-left politician and was a previous President of Chile—the first woman to hold this position in the country's history. She won the 2006 presidential election in a runoff, beating center-right billionaire businessman and former senator Sebastián Piñera, with 53.5% of the vote. A moderate Socialist, she campaigned on a platform of continuing Chile's free market policies, while increasing social benefits to help reduce the country's gap between rich and poor, one of the largest in the world. She was inaugurated on March 11, 2006.

Bachelet — a surgeon, pediatrician and epidemiologist with studies in military strategy—served as Health Minister and Defense Minister under President Ricardo Lagos. She is a separated mother of three and a self-described agnostic. A polyglot, she speaks Spanish, English, German, Portuguese and French. In 2007, Forbes magazine ranked her as 27th in the list of the 100 most powerful women in the world (10 spots down from the 2006 list).

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Saint Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga, born Luis Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga (January 22, 1901 Viña del Mar, Chile - August 18, 1952, Santiago, Chile), was a Chilean Jesuit priest, social worker and writer, founder of the Hogar de Cristo movement. He was canonized on October 23, 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI, becoming his country's second saint.

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Ramón Freire Serrano (November 29, 1787 – December 9, 1851) was a Chilean military and political figure.

Freire was born in Santiago in 1787 but moved to Concepción where he in 1811 joined the independist struggle by entering the army as a cadet. After the collapse of the independent Patria Vieja following a Spanish invasion he and many other Chilean took refuge in independent Argentina.

Freire returned to Chile together with the José de San Martín's Army of the Andes in 1817. Once in Chile Freire was sent with a hundred men to liberate Talca. Later, he fought in the decisive Battle of Maipú.

After the royalist collapse, Freire was named intendant of Concepción, Chile. From that city, he led operations against a mix of outlaws and royalist and Mapuche guerrillas in what has come to been known as the Guerra a muerte ("War to the Death") phase of the Chilean war for independence.

In 1823, Freire rose against the authoritarian government of Bernardo O'Higgins, forcing him to renounce his position as supreme director. The successful insurrection catapulted Freire into becoming head of state himself; in that office, he exiled O'Higgins and abolished slavery.

The following year, 1824, Freire organized an expedition to expel the royalist Spanish from the Chiloé Archipelago, their last stronghold. The expedition failed after republican Jorge Beauchef lost the Battle of Mocopulli. In 1826, Freire tried again to conquer Chiloé, this time leading an army of 2,500 men himself; the governor of Chiloé, Antonio de Quintanilla, surrendered to the superior force.

Freire was again elected head of state in 1827, this time with the title of president; but he resigned the office later the same year. In 1829, José Joaquín Prieto led a successful insurrection that created a junta (a congress of notables), which Freire did not recognise and which he opposed in the Battle of Lircay. After being defeated, he went into exile in Peru. From Peru, he managed to hire two ships with which he planned to capture Chiloé and from there overthrow the new regime. After a secret shipboard mutiny, however, he was handed over to Chilean officials.

Freire then was sent to the prison island of Robinson Crusoe by direct orders from Diego Portales. He returned to mainland Chile only in 1842 and retired from public life. He died in 1851.