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.

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.

Some take advantage of natural resources to put the capital in the hands of the few, while some use these natural resources to benefit the majority, as we do in Bolivia.

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.

Politics in Bolivia must combine social consciousness with professional competency. In my administration, intellectuals from the upper class can be cabinet ministers or ambassadors, as can members of Indian ethnic groups.

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.

The United States is using its war on drugs as an excuse to expand its control over Latin America.