Women come to South America's defense

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — South America's leaders are increasingly naming women as their defense ministers, putting them in charge of keeping the peace in nations still grappling with legacies of military dictatorships.

The wave of female defense heads — one-third of the posts in South America are filled by women — is especially surprising in a hemisphere known for its machismo.

But analysts say Latin America is changing fast, as newly elected leftist leaders across the region are reaching out to appoint women to Cabinet posts.

Chile's first female president filled half her Cabinet with women upon taking office last March. Ecuador's new president, Rafael Correa, assigned women to seven of 17 Cabinet posts earlier this month. Other leaders regionwide have named women to key posts in the economy, interior and defense ministries.

Some observers say those are signs of maturity in once-shaky democracies that traditionally were dominated by men, as the women filling the roles have moved quickly to make their presence felt.

In Argentina, leftist Nilda Garre was appointed as the country's first female minister of defense in November 2005, 30 years after coup-plotting generals helped install a dictatorship.

On Friday, she announced that former military officers could no longer use the cloak of state secrecy laws as an excuse not to testify about illegal abductions, torture and disappearances under junta rule.

"The rules of secrecy cannot be transformed into an obstacle to truth and justice," she said in announcing a presidential decree that will compel more officers to testify. Hundreds of cases of rights violations from Argentina's "Dirty War" are being investigated since the country's amnesty laws were struck down in 2005.

Across the Andes, Chilean Defense Minister Vivianne Blanlot was booed loudly when she went as the government's envoy to the military funeral for ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet, who died last month.

"Go away, go away!" hundreds of Pinochet's mourners chanted.

But Blanlot stayed put, not twitching a muscle. "I was not the one who had to leave, but them," she said. "I'm the one who is in charge."

Blanlot's predecessor, Michele Bachelet, a socialist and former torture victim, faced similar challenges as defense minister. But she parlayed public respect for her role into her election in January 2005 as Chile's first woman president.

After her inauguration, Bachelet named 10 men and 10 women to her Cabinet, including Blanlot, and she promised equal numbers of men and women in some 300 decision-making posts.

In Uruguay, Defense Minister Azucena Berruti, a socialist and lawyer who defended political prisoners during the 1973-85 military rule, did not hesitate to sack her army chief last year for unauthorized meetings with political foes of the president.

Correa in Ecuador named the country's first female defense minister, Guadalupe Larriva, last month. But she was killed last Wednesday in a helicopter crash.

Larriva, 50, was one of seven women in a Cabinet of 17 and reportedly had the full support of the military in the fragile Andean nation.

On Friday, Correa named another woman, Lorena Escudero, a 41-year-old college professor, to head the Defense Ministry, a government spokesman told reporters.

Larriva's death shook Correa's young government as tension escalates with Congress over his plans to rewrite the constitution in the unstable country, where three presidents have been ousted in the past decade.

Correa has called for an investigation with the help of international experts into last week's crash of the two Gazelle helicopters that killed Larriva, her teenage daughter and five military personnel after a military training session.

Larriva was a former teacher and leader of the socialist political party supporting Correa.

Information about the new Ecuadorean defense minister from Reuters