Bolivian vows to wipe out colonial past

TIWANAKU, Bolivia — Bolivian President-elect Evo Morales, dressed in a bright red tunic worn only by the most important pre-Inca priests, promised to do away with vestiges of his country's colonial past Saturday in a spiritual ceremony at an ancient temple on the eve of his inauguration.

To roars from the crowd of tens of thousands, Morales — the first Indian to be elected as Bolivia's president and a fierce critic of the United States — called his landslide election a victory for indigenous populations around the world, saying it was evidence that poor countries can rise up to challenge richer ones.

"With the unity of the people, we're going to end the colonial state and the neoliberal model," said Morales, who spoke mostly in Spanish but also offered greetings in the Aymara language he grew up speaking as a boy.

Afterward, Morales headed to La Paz and met with Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, who heads the State Department's Western Hemisphere affairs bureau.

The two spent an hour talking in the kitchen of Morales' small apartment but did not discuss coca eradication.

"We didn't talk about that issue," Shannon said. "We came to congratulate the new president for his victory and wish him success."

While Morales has vowed to battle drug trafficking since his election, he said this week a coca grower will be named to the top government post in the fight against illegal drugs. U.S. officials now worry the new president may limit U.S.-sponsored eradication programs, and coca growers say they will pressure him to expand areas where the leaf, the raw material for cocaine, can be legally grown.

Earlier, spectators — many themselves chewing coca leaves — walked for miles to listen to the leftist leader in Tiwanaku, passing thatched adobe huts and grazing sheep to reach the archaeological remains of the civilization that flourished from around 500 B.C. to about the 13th century near the shores of Lake Titicaca, 40 miles from La Paz.

When Morales arrived, they shouted "Viva Evo! Viva Bolivia!" in both Spanish and Aymara, waving rainbow-colored flags representing 500 years of Indian resistance, first against Spaniard domination, then against nearly two centuries of grinding poverty in a country with a deep divide between rich and poor.

Many of Bolivia's Indians, representing 60 percent of the country's 8.5 million citizens, contend a white elite is responsible for continued repression.