- Paulina Veloso
Paulina Eliana Veloso Valenzuela (born in
Concepción ,Chile ,February 14 ,1957 ) is aChile an lawyer and Socialist Party politician who served as theMinister Secretary-General of the Presidency of Chile (also rendered as the president's Chief of Staff in English) fromMarch 11 ,2006 toMarch 27 ,2007 .cite news|title=Paulina Veloso llega a la Secretaría General de la Presidencia|url=http://www.lasegunda.com/ediciononline/cronica/detalle/index.asp?idnoticia=263010|language=Spanish|publisher=La Segunda|date=January 30 ,2006 ]Family
Velaso is the daughter of the ex-
intendant of theBiobío Region , lawyer Adolfo Veloso Figueroa (Socialist Party) and Felicitas Valenzuela, an academic with theUniversidad de Concepción . She is a cousin of the intendant ofBiobío Region , María Soledad Tohá Veloso. She is also the mother ofNicolás Grau , who was the president of theStudents Federation of the Universidad de Chile ("Federación de Estudiantes de la Universidad de Chile").Life under the Pinochet regime
After the Chilean coup d'état of
Augusto Pinochet onSeptember 11 ,1973 , Veloso's fiancé at the time (and later husband),Alexei Jaccard Siegler , was detained and tortured by agents of theDINA . In 1974, the two escaped together for an exile inSwitzerland . OnMay 15 ,1977 , during a trip toBuenos Aires , Jaccard was detained in the name ofOperation Condor for Chilean and Argentine agents. He was moved to theESMA internment camp, tortured, and later was disappeared. [cite news|url=http://www.clarin.com/suplementos/zona/2000/02/20/i-00601e.htm|title=La mala fortuna del joven Jaccard|date=2000-02-20 |author=Juan Gasparini|publisher=Clarín.com|language=Spanish]Paulina Veloso lived in Switzerland for many years, where she obtained dual nationality, and finally returned to Chile in 1979. Veloso studied law at the
Universidad de Concepción , graduating with the highest distinction.cite news|url=http://www.tercera.cl/medio/articulo/0,0,3255_5664_186282524,00.html|title=Veloso y Barría: las más cercanas a la Mandataria en el gabinete femenino|author=Miguel Saldivia|date=02/01/2006|language=Spanish|publisher=La Tercera] She was sworn in as a lawyer before theSupreme Court of Chile in 1987. Principally dedicated to the academic life, she has served as the chair ofcivil law at theUniversidad de Chile School of Law in Santiago from 1991 until the present. She also served as member of the Council of the Faculty.Government service
With the return of democracy to Chile at the beginning of the 1990s, Veloso began to work in various public offices, including Undersecretary of Labor and chief of staff in the
Ministry of Labor and Social Security ("Ministerio del Trabajo y Previsión Social") from 1990-1994, Deputy Director of theNational Women's Service ("Servicio Nacional de la Mujer") from 1994-1997. In 2002 the President appointed Veloso to be a court-assisting attorney for theCourt of Appeals of Santiago . In 2005, she was elected a councilor of theState Defense Council ("Consejo de Defensa del Estado"). [cite news|url=http://www.tercera.cl/medio/articulo/0,0,3255_5664_163633429,00.html|title=Lagos nombra a consejeros afines a Bachelet en CDE|author=José Miguel Wilson and Paola Riquelme|date=06/10/2005|publisher=La Tercera|language=Spanish]Veloso was appointed Minister Secretary-General of the Presidency by President
Michelle Bachelet , and she assumed the post onMarch 11 ,2006 . This appointment made her one of the 10 women appointed to Bachelet's historic half-female, half-male cabinet.cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4664574.stm|title=Women get half Chile cabinet jobs|date=31 January 2006 |publisher=BBC] OnMarch 27 ,2007 Velaso was replaced as minister by the Socialist lawyerJosé Antonio Viera-Gallo as part of Bachelet's rearrangement of the cabinet in the midst of fallout over the handling ofTransantiago . [cite news|url=http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/27/america/LA-POL-Chile-Cabinet-Shuffle.php|title=Chile's Bachelet shuffles Cabinet in face of public transportation crisis|date=March 26 ,2007 |publisher=International Herald Tribune|author=The Associated Press]References
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