H.E. Carlos Mesa served as President of the Republic of Bolivia from 2003 to 2005. He is a Bolivian historian, journalist, writer and politician and is currently Chairman of the Fundación Comunidad, an organization committed to help strengthen democratic institutions. He has published a number of books including De Cerca: una década de conversaciones en democracia (1993), a transcription of a series of interviews with several prominent Latin American politicians on the democratization process of the region.