I will not be able to rule without you. You and I have the same responsibility. I do, as Bolivia's number one servant. Servant - one who serves the nation, not one whom the nation serves.
The cost of pension reforms has been perhaps the biggest error committed in the process of modernizing Bolivia's economy.
Bolivia is not yet a country of equals.
When I came back from Bolivia, my Spanish was in some ways as good as my English. I am rusty today. But I am comfortable talking in Spanish. I am not flawless or fluent, but I am comfortable. It takes me a day or two speaking a lot of Spanish to get back into a rhythm.
As an indigenous leader from Bolivia, I know what exclusion looks like. Before 1952, my people were not allowed to even enter the main squares of Bolivia's cities, and there were almost no indigenous politicians in government until the late 1990s.
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.
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.
In 2005, before I was president, the state of Bolivia had only $300 million from hydrocarbons. Last year, 2007, the Bolivian state - after the nationalization, after changing the law - Bolivia received $1,930 million. For a small country with nearly 10 million inhabitants, this allows us to increase the national economy.
Natural disasters in Bolivia have been getting worse with the passage of time. It's brought about by a system: the capitalist system, the unbridled industrialization of the resources of the Planet Earth.
Bolivia is a majority indigenous nation, but that majority has always been excluded.
