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03/17/2006:

"Evo Morales: Bolivia, a Homeland for All"

Today our government celebrates its first month, the first 30 days of the democratic and cultural revolution that we are heading, with the overwhelming popular mandate of December 18, 2005, when Bolivians from the countryside and cities decided to turn the page on a history full of injustice and discrimination.

We have named a cabinet that is representative of the social movements, business owners, the middle classes, indigenous peoples, intellectuals and women. We are dealing with a cabinet never before seen in Bolivian history that tries to fully express a multicultural, dignified, sovereign Bolivia. I want to say, with a lot of pride, that this is the first cabinet formed as a result of an autonomous decision, without pressure from international bodies.

We have named a military high command that is a break with the past of the subordination of our armed forces to external interests. Instead, it privileges professionalism, discipline and the respect of our sovereignty as a country. We need to recuperate our sovereignty in the heart of the state, in the security bodies, in the military institutions and in the policing bodies.

For some it has been novel that this president begins work at 5am — like the majority of Bolivian workers and campesinos [peasants] — and that he has renounced 57% of his wage. However this measure has been a marker defining the spirit of our government: I am president, not to win more money, but to work more for the homeland. With this measure [which reduced the wages of other elected officials, who cannot be paid more than the president] the executive power has saved 13.9 million bolivianos [US$1.7 million], which will be our contribution towards obtaining 3500 new items in the education area, a sector that received for the first time in years a 7% increase in salaries, without marches, blockades nor other acts of pressure.
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