VALPARAISO, Chile, March 11 (UPI) -- Michelle Bachelet, who was tortured during Chile's years of military dictatorship, was sworn in Saturday as the country's president.
Bachelet is the first woman to head the Chilean government and the third in South and Central America.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attended the inauguration. Two presidents now on the outs with Washington, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and Evo Morales of Bolivia, were also there.
Morales, a former head of the Bolivian coca growers federation, gave Rice an indigenous stringed instrument that appeared to have coca leaves on its surface, Voice of America reported. Morales supports the legal growing of coca, although he opposes cocaine trafficking.
The meeting between the two was friendly. Rice and Chavez did not have a face-to-face encounter.
Bachelet, a pediatrician and single mother, promises to reduce economic inequality in Chile and to give women and indigenous peoples a greater role in government.
