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"This visit is historic for us and we hope that it is historic for the Chilean people," said Morales before his brief meeting with Bachelet dressed in a casual zip-up jacket instead of the sweater that he famously wore to meet European and Asian leaders after he was elected.

Morales, an Aymara Indian and Bolivia's first indigenous leader, was expected to spend Friday evening at a rally of thousands of leftists in Santiago who see him as a symbol of increasing power of the left and indigenous people in Latin America.

"He is a union leader, a man of the people, an Aymara Indian who came to be president and who has shown all of the organizations of Latin America that the ceiling doesn't have to be so low, that we can all have an influence on politics in our countries and in Latin America," said Nicolas Grau, president of the University of Chile student federation, which helped organize the rally for Morales.

After the meeting with Bachelet, who will be Chile's first female president, Morales told reporters,"We are from sectors that have been historically discriminated against, as women, as indigenous people, we have a great opportunity to talk to other countries to change our histories."

"It is historic and completely new that just as a woman is president of Chile a man of Aymara origin is the president of Bolivia," Bachelet said after the meeting.

IMPROVING RELATIONS

A political analyst said recent gestures between the two countries signaled that Morales and Bachelet could repair diplomatic ties that were broken off in 1978 after years of negotiations failed to resolve Bolivia's claim to access to the Pacific Ocean.

REUTERS

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