There was no private property in the past. Everything was communal property. In the Indian community where I was born, everything belonged to the community. This way of life is more equitable.

All of Africa's resources should be declared resources of the state and managed by the nation. Our experience in Bolivia shows that when you take control of natural resources for the people of the town and village, major world change is possible.

From my standpoint, coca should be neither destroyed nor completely legalized. Farming should be controlled by the state and by the coca farmers' unions.

We have raised an issue that is already in the Bolivian constitution, that water is a universal human right. And we asked the United Nations to recognize water as a human right.

The 21st of December marks the end of the time and the beginning of no-time

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.

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.