In this new millennium it is more important to defend the rights of the Mother Earth to guarantee human rights.

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.

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 Iraq, [American administration] said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction endangering mankind. With this pretext, the U.S. intervened militarily, and all they did is take control over oil fields, and oil wells.

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.

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.

The way I see it, it's impossible to change things without encountering resistance.