Bolivia's Morales feted in ceremony at pre-Inca ruins [View All]

[EuroObserver]

21/01/2006 21h15
TIWANAKU, Bolivia (AFP) - Evo Morales was crowned supreme chief of Andean Indians in an elaborate ceremony, one day before his inauguration as Bolivia's first indigenous president.

Some 20,000 Aymara and Quechua Indians clad in brightly colored ponchos gathered at South America's oldest ruins to witness the Aymara Indian who won Bolivia's presidency by a landslide being invested with sacred powers by a shaman chief.

Morales, 46, is to take the oath of office in La Paz Sunday before world leaders including the EU's Javier Solana, Crown Prince Felipe of Spain, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Cuba will be represented by Vice President Carlos Lage, and the United States by Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Tom Shannon, who was scheduled to meet Morales on Saturday.
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None of the world dignitaries set to attend the inauguration was on hand for Saturday's ceremonies, packed with political symbolism in a country long ruled by the European-descended elite.

/more story, photos ... http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/060121211516.q3osi9aj.html