Bolivia also depends not only on tin and other minerals, but also depends on the gas and oil. A rational extraction should be made, taking care of the environment. We should give added value to this natural resource, and generate revenue to fight poverty with more resources, that come from natural resources.
I have a lot of trouble understanding all the detail of finance and administration - but if you combine intellectual and professional capacity with a social conscience, you can change things: countries, structures, economic models, colonial states.
Sooner or later we will reach a point where communitarian socialism turns global because capitalism is not even the solution to capitalism itself.
Bolivia historically made and still makes a living from natural resources. Before it was tin, but also silver, gold, and other minerals were plundered by many foreign countries. Europe after the United States.
There are countries that send us garbage. There are countries that send us their outdated technology as their cooperation. With Fidel [Castro] it is totally different. Fidel is the first and the best one to stand for peace in the world denouncing the interventionist policies of the U.S.
The United States is using its war on drugs as an excuse to expand its control over Latin America.
Some countries of Europe have to free themselves from the US Empire. They are not going to frighten us because we are a people with dignity and sovereignty.
In Bolivia there are Catholic, Evangelical, Methodist, Baptist churches, and so on. In Bolivia there are indigenous religious beliefs like the rite of Pachamama Mother Earth, which shows us that Mother Earth is our life, we are born out of the Earth we live on the Earth and return to the Earth.
I'm still convinced. We all fight for freedom, but the foundation of freedom is equality and justice. And we are all on the road.
We want to govern with our indigenous ancestors' models: That means a different concept of participation, community work and honesty.
In Latin America, in the past, it was almost impossible to guarantee democracy. There were military dictatorships, and nowadays there are not so many military dictatorships. Although we have a dictator in Honduras, as a result of a coup, now as a president, he is almost the only one I would say. But again led or managed, gestated by the U.S. government.
The capitalist system only allows us to heap up waste. I would like to propose that the trillions of money earmarked for war should be channeled to make good the damage to the environment, to make reparations to the earth.
I learned that the political is above the legal, that's why when my advisors tell me, Evo, what you are doing is illegal, I say, if it is illegal, then do it legal, you have studied for that".
Capitalism is destroying Mother Earth, and to destroy Mother Earth is to destroy humanity.
Lithium is like a beautiful lady, very much sought and pursued, especially in Bolivia. There is data indicating Bolivia has the largest reserves of lithium in the world.
We are going forward with the idea of a multicultural , a multinational state, trying to live in unity, at the same time respecting our diversity...But we need to all come together so we can live united.
If socialism means that we live well, that there is equality and justice, and that we have no social and economic problems, then I welcome it.
The peoples of the Andes believe in the concept of 'living well' instead of wanting to 'live better' by consuming more, regardless of the cost to our neighbors and our environment.
Why communitarian socialism? Now not only do we have the pursuit of happiness for man, as a government, as a program or as our principles. But as well to live in harmony with Mother Earth.
With our goddess, the Pachamama, and it is not possible to continue having a monopoly of religious faith, only Catholic. We have therefore adopted the new constitution as a secular state where all religious beliefs will be respected.
This is a coca leaf. This is not cocaine. This represents the culture of indigenous people of the Andean region.
We see how capitalism is destroying Mother Earth. I remain convinced that the Earth can exist without man but man cannot live without the Earth.
I don't debate with liars.
The chicken that we eat is chock-full of feminine hormones. So, when men eat these chickens, they deviate from themselves as men.
Bolivia's majority Indian population was always excluded, politically oppressed and culturally alienated. Our national wealth, our raw materials, was plundered. Indios were once treated like animals here. In the 1930s and 40s, they were sprayed with DDT to kill the vermin on their skin and in their hair whenever they came into the city.
