On April 25, former Bolivian President Evo Morales and representatives from 3 other countries gave a press conference to communicate conclusions from Runasur, with repeated mention of mother earth. According to this Spanish-language article, two indigenous representatives from the lowlands of Bolivia: Roni Ribera and Alex Villca provided critical responses.
“Roni Ribera, from the Chiquitana nation, said that the theory put forward by Morales does not fit with practice. He criticized that they do not include the indigenous peoples of the lowlands. For Ribera, the commission spoke of decolonization, despite the fact that what has been done and will continue to be done at this time is internal colonization… He regretted that there is talk of Mother Earth, but extractivism is promoted from practice, and that the indigenous people of the highlands are denatured, instrumentalizing them as social movements.”
“According to Villca, Runasur is merely 21st century socialism and to enter that for indigenous peoples is to lose the horizon . “They say that the only ones who achieved the purpose of plurinational integration are Ecuador and Bolivia. They say that having been dominated by neoliberal governments has caused a social, economic and environmental crisis, which is the one we are experiencing now, but they unload the responsibility on the supposedly neoliberal governments, but they say absolutely nothing that they deepened the crisis.”
“For Villca, what Evo says to the media is interesting, but in practice he does the opposite . There are many events that he is leading to wash his image , especially at the international level, obviously also at the local level, and for them social organizations are those that are subordinate to power, to their ideology. The critics who question their policies are not valid indigenous people, nor are we valid interlocutors . There is a social stratification in the indigenous peoples, it seems that there are first, second and third class indigenous people, "he alluded to the former president, current MAS president.”