Quotes from Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada

The actions I took at a time of national crisis in 2003 were necessary to protect lives and property and restore law and order. Regrettably, lives were lost among both the government forces and armed protesters.

I'm not going to say that the problems of my government, or those of Bolivia, are the fault of the United States. But they could have done a little more to help us.

Whoever gives in to terrorism has to be prepared to do so many times.

Around the continent, governments worry that indigenous groups are fertile ground for extremist, terrorist groups. We are trying to make sure that doesn't happen here.

I only became involved in politics when democracy returned to Bolivia. Then, unluckily in democracy, we ran into the inheritance of 20 years of military government, a great deal of debt, and a great deal of expense.

It's difficult to explain a giraffe to a Bolivian who lives on the Altiplano. But when they see one, I think they'll like it.

There is a national consensus building here that drugs are doing a great deal of damage to the Bolivian society.

Everybody has to remember that economics is very tied to politics.

I was always a reformer. My father and mother were progressives, and they believed in the universal vote, vote for women, land reform, and a lot of things which at one time were not accepted; they're much more accepted now.

To say to a country that it shouldn't export its gas is like saying, 'Look, the only way we can defeat hunger is to put a padlock on the refrigerator.'

I was very identified with and accused of being a neo-liberal with respect to the economy.

There are radical elements who don't want me to finish my term. But I will not resign.

I would say I'm a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, if that contradiction can make sense, because in Bolivia, we have a great problem, which is the inequity of income distribution. The rich aren't that rich, but the poor are very poor.

We don't know if our economy, our society, could support the social and the human and the economic cost of an insurgency.

I've never liked to judge other people in the hope that they won't judge me.

Hopefully, together we can find solutions to our grave problems, but we'll never find them through violence.

We are turning all Bolivians into capitalists.

As a political exile, you always think you're going home next year.

The economy should serve man, not statistics.

Democracy is not perfect.

I ask one more thing from our father above - God save Bolivia.

I'm going to have to campaign to teach Bolivians who the president is, because apparently they haven't realized I'm here yet.

After Victor Paz's government, I was still in politics, but I personally spent a lot of time consulting and working with Argentina, with Peru, and in Brazil.

I got my degree in philosophy and English literature; those were my main interests.