The most important thing is the indigenous people are not vindictive by nature. We are not here to oppress anybody - but to join together and build Bolivia, with justice and equality.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The relationship between the government of the United States and social and indigenous movements has always been difficult. Not just in Bolivia but worldwide. We need to have bilateral relations characterized by mutual respect.
Bolivia is a majority indigenous nation, but that majority has always been excluded.
It's easy for people in an air-conditioned room to continue with the policies of destruction of Mother Earth. We need instead to put ourselves in the shoes of families in Bolivia and worldwide that lack water and food and suffer misery and hunger.
We are starting a process of decolonization in Bolivia. All this is bringing about change and we will continue.
I want to stress that at no time Bolivia acts untimely or irresponsibly.
I want Bolivians to support their president.
In 2006, I entered the presidential palace in the main square of La Paz as the first indigenous president of Bolivia. Our government, under the slogan 'Bolivia Changes,' is committed to ending the colonialism, racism and exclusion that many of our people lived under for many centuries.
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.
We want to overcome our historical problems with Chile. The sea has divided us and the sea must bring us back together again. Chile has agreed, for the first time, to talk about sea access for Bolivia.
Well, I think indigenous peoples have ways of living on the Earth that they've had forever. And they've been overrun by organized religion, which has had a lot of money and power.
No opposing quotes found.