Bolivia's President Evo Morales wants to make his country the fourth country in Latin America to have nuclear energy. Morales announced plans this week to build Bolivia's first nuclear reactor.

Speaking to the Bolivian Congress, Morales said the development of nuclear technology in Bolivia would be for peaceful purposes, and made the establishment of nuclear power a strategic priority for the Latin American country. The Bolivian president, first elected in 2006, is running for reelection in Oct. 2014.

"Bolivia cannot remain excluded from this technology, which belongs to all humankind," said Morales in his annual state of the union address in La Paz, Bolivia, according to BBC. "We have decided to create a high-level energy commission. This is a priority of the Bolivian state."

Morales also asserted that Iran, France, and Argentina have all offered to help Bolivia develop its first nuclear reactor. If Bolivia did build a nuclear power plant, it would be the fourth Latin American country to have an operating nuclear energy system. Brazil, Argentina and Mexico all started developing nuclear energy in the 1970s, and Chile has nuclear reactors as well, but they're only small-scale and experimental.

Morales is the first indigenous leader of Bolivia in the small country's history, and has been outspoken in his critique of the influence of the United States in South and Central America. For example, in 2006, Morales visited the U.N. and addressed the General Assembly for the first time, condemning then-President George W. Bush as a terrorist. Later, in 2011, Morales expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), citing the U.S. war on drugs as a basis to manipulate the Bolivian Government. Morales's leftist government has for years had ties with leftist leaders like Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa.  

But Morales has successfully completed several projects meant to push Bolivia into the modern age. One of those successes was launching the country's first telecommunications satellite with the help of China, which should be fully operational in the spring of 2014, helping bring down communications costs and improving internet and television services for rural Bolivians.

Morales also said the satellite -- which was named after Tupak Katari, an indigenous hero who fought Spanish colonial rule -- would help Bolivia end its dependence on foreign powers for communications. "This will be our light, after living for so many years in the obscurity, the suffering and the domination of the empires," said Mr Morales, according to BBC News.

The satellite was launched in December 2013, with huge crowds watching on televisions in the central square of La Paz. Bolivia is one of the last South American countries to have its own satellite in orbit.