NEWS STANDING BEAR
TIWANAKU, Bolivia (Reuters) - At the sacred ruins of a powerful pre-Inca
civilisation, a colourfully clad Evo Morales sought the spiritual energy and
blessings of his Andean ancestors on Saturday, the eve of his inauguration
as
Boliviaâ?Ts first indigenous president.
The 46-year-old Aymara Indian
walked a path, which had been swept with coca
leaves, that travelled among
Tiwanakuâ?Ts pyramids and temples, dating from 700
AD, in the company of
spiritual leaders.
They dressed him in a red tunic like the ones used by the
priests of Tiwanaku
1,000 years ago and a four-cornered cap and bestowed on
him a staff of
command representing the 36 nationalities of Boliviaâ?Ts
indigenous majority.
Amid shouts of "Jallalla Evo" (Long live Evo), the
leaders performed rituals
to energise the president-elect and together they
made offerings to Pachamama,
Mother Earth, to thank her for the
victory.
Morales had gone to Tiwanaku to pray to Pachamama before the
December 18
elections, in which the leftist won a surprisingly high 54
percent of the vote in
Bolivia, the poorest country in South
America.
Some 10,000 Bolivians from all over the country descended on the
revered
ruins, the cradle of the Aymara people located 40 miles (70 km) from
the capital,
La Paz, and 13,000 feet (4,000 metres) above sea
level.
"Today begins a new era for the native peoples of the world," Morales
told
the crowd in Spanish, urging his followers to help "end the colonial
state and
the neo-liberal model."
The ritual was a mixture of Andean
tradition and modern improvisation since
the white elite has ruled Bolivia,
a country of 9.4 million today, since the
Spanish arrived 500 years
ago.
Morales, a llama herder in boyhood who rose to prominence as leader of
the
coca farmers, will be sworn in on Sunday in Congress with an
unprecedented 12
heads of state in attendance.
â?TI WILL BE
MILLIONSâ?T
Tiwanaku is considered to be the greatest megalithic
architectural
achievement of pre-Inca South America, home to 20,000
inhabitants at its height. It
melted into obscurity around 1200 AD.
At
dawn, under the heavy grey skies of the Andean highlands, Moralesâ?Ts
followers protected themselves in the multicoloured indigenous flag, the
ubiquitous
Wiphala, and blue scarves of his Socialist party. Community
leaders
identifiable by their red ponchos provided the first ring of
security.
After years of turmoil and protests that toppled two presidents,
hope for
change fuelled the festive atmosphere.
"There is so much poverty
in Bolivia and before there was not much chance of
change," said La Paz
engineering student Juan Jimachi. "Even the rich people
support Evo. He
cannot betray us because he is one of us."
Despite centuries of oppression,
only in recent years has, Boliviaâ?Ts
indigenous majority, made up mainly of
Aymara, Quechua and Guarani nations, organised
itself
politically.
Morales rose to prominence among the indigenous with his coca
growersâ?T
protests against a U.S-funded war on drugs and eradication of the
coca crop, the raw
material used to make cocaine.
In the 18th century
during Spainâ?Ts colonial rule of mineral-rich Bolivia, a
defeated Aymara
leader, Tupac Katari, predicted: "You only kill me, but I will
return and I
will be millions."
But the "original" citizens, and even Morales himself, are
amazed that Tupac
Katariâ?Ts prophecy has come true.
"What we are seeing
now is something that we never could have imagined," said
Waldo Wilcarani,
director of the brass band for the city of Oruro in which
Morales used to
play the trumpet.
(Additional reporting by Carlos Quiroga)