Latin America sees Obama bridging ideological divide

By Stuart Grudgings

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.