MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Another scandal for Mr. Lagos

After enduring a full year of political and financial scandals involving former associates, this week Chilean president Ricardo Lagos administration has been forced to openly support Minister of Defence Michelle Bachelet who allegedly in the mid eighties was active in a terrorist group combating the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

Francisco Vidal, Secretary General of Government House, said that the claims involving Ms. Bachelet only have the purpose of targeting some of the best positioned members of the ruling coalition.

"This is part of a political strategy manipulated by opposition groups concerned with the strong standing of the Defence Minister and other members of the cabinet", emphasized Mr. Vidal.

Last week a Santiago magazine published a long interview with a former member of the terrorist group Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez, FPMR, who detailed the alleged activities of Ms. Bachelet between 1986 and 1988 as an activist, and later reiterated the claims saying that she was part of the patriotic struggle against tyranny, "and shouldn't be ashamed of her past as member of FPMR".

FPMR among other violent actions organized an attack on a convoy escorting then president Augusto Pinochet. Ms. Bachelet denied all the accusations and was openly supported by the Lagos administration. "It's evident that there are parties interested in damaging multiple emerging leaderships in the ruling Concertación, particularly with Ms. Bachelet and Ms. Soledad Alvear (Chilean Foreign Secretary), insisted Mr. Vidal. Both ladies are considered potential candidates to succeed President Lagos in 2006.

The different groupings of the Concertación also expressed solidarity with Ms. Bachelet describing it as an "extreme left" vendetta for the Chilean vote in the human rights issue against Cuba.

However the Conservative opposition, who has praised Ms. Bachelet for her job as Minister of Defence insisted it was necessary to prove that the magazine was acting dishonestly and Ms. Bachelet was saying the truth. Ms. Bachelet belongs to the Socialist Party and is the first woman in Chilean history to be named Minister of Defence. Her father was a former Air Force general who was killed by the military coup that deposed elected Socialist president Salvador Allende and enthroned General Pinochet as dictator in 1973 until 1990.

The political attack on one of President Lagos ministers follows a whole year of financial scandals mainly with Public Works Ministry contracts that helped finance political campaigns and ended with several officials jailed. In the previous administration Mr. Lagos was Minister of Public Works and the magistrate who has the ongoing investigation has anticipated she will be questioning the Chilean president.