Latin America sees Obama bridging ideological divide
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Barack Obama's historic election victory spread optimism in Latin America on Wednesday that the new U.S. president will narrow an ideological divide with the region and end years of U.S. neglect or hectoring.
Hopes of a drastic shift in relations may be unrealistic as Obama will have to deal with a deep economic crisis, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He faces complex policy challenges in Latin America, which has in the last decade shifted away from U.S. influence and to the political left.
But the first black U.S. president is a potent symbol in a region with its own history of racial oppression, and his victory has raised hopes of an easing of rocky U.S. ties with socialist governments in Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia.
"Obama is a man who comes from discriminated and enslaved sectors," said Evo Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous Indian president, who kicked out the U.S. ambassador in September and last week suspended U.S. anti-drug operations in his country.
"My greatest wish is that Mr. Obama can end the Cuba embargo, take troops out of some countries, and also surely relations between Bolivia and the United States will improve."
Cuba's former leader and communist U.S. foe Fidel Castro praised Obama as more "intelligent" and "cultured" than his Republican opponent John McCain.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has called President George W. Bush "the devil" and has expanded ties with Iran and Russia, said Obama's win presented a chance for better ties between the superpower and one of its biggest oil suppliers.
Jamaicans drank to Obama's win and some fired guns into the air when his victory was announced around midnight.
"I am so happy. This is a real change in the U.S. I never expected to see this in my lifetime," said Kingston resident Esmine Brown, 72.
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said the Democrat's victory after eight years of Republican leadership should bring an improvement in the U.S. government's priorities.
"I know that his main worries are social justice and equal opportunity and what he has summed up with his slogans for hope and change are definitely the same principles that inspire us in Chile," she said in Santiago.
"GOOD NEIGHBOR"
As Latin America has grown more economically independent and self-confident in recent years, even moderate leftist leaders in countries like Brazil and Chile have distanced themselves from the United States and expanded their ties with China and Europe.
In a speech to the Cuban-American Foundation in Miami in May, Obama laid out a vision for the region based on 1930s Franklin Roosevelt administration, when the United States ended an era of military intervention and replaced it with a "good neighbor" policy that stressed cooperation and mutual respect.
He has pledged to encourage democracy from the "bottom up" by, for example, loosening restrictions on travel to and from Cuba. He wants a more open diplomatic approach that could see him sit down with leaders like Chavez and Cuba's Raul Castro.
But Obama has used strong rhetoric against Chavez and pledges to keep the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba.
He also voiced support for U.S. ally Colombia when it launched a military raid against guerrilla forces camped inside neighboring Ecuador in March even though it was condemned by many Latin American governments.
He wants to expand security aid to Mexico and the countries of Central America in their fight against rampant drug violence, seen by critics as a continuation of a failed U.S. approach on drugs.
"One thing we've learned about Obama is that he is not a dove on foreign policy," said Michael Shifter at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington.
"With Chavez, his particular concern will be with be his alliances with Iran and Russia."
In Brazil, home to the biggest black population outside Africa and where Obama is so popular that several election candidates used his name when they campaigned in local elections last month, the government is wary of Obama's perceived opposition to free trade.
Obama favors taxing Brazil's sugar cane-derived ethanol, which is more competitive than the U.S. corn-based biofuel, and has been critical of free trade deals with other Latin American countries such as Colombia.
"These differences won't be instantaneously resolved by an Obama victory," said Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Brazil's minister for strategic affairs who taught Obama at Harvard.
Brazil's working class President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called on Obama to forge more "active relations" with Latin America and to end the embargo on Cuba.
Obama has opposed a proposed free-trade pact with Colombia, calling on it to do more to stop murders of labor union leaders and prosecute their killers. Democrats, who strengthened their grip on Congress on Tuesday, want a reduction in the military portion of a U.S. aid package to Colombia, the largest outside the Middle East.
"It would be good to talk with President Obama," President Alvaro Uribe told local radio. "We have made a lot of effort and have results to show, though we are still not satisfied."
(Additional reporting by Ray Colitt in Brasilia; Simon Gardner in Santiago; Horace Helps in Kingston; Carlos Quiroga in La Paz; Patrick Markey in Bogota; Saul Hudson in Caracas;Editing by Kieran Murray)
