Columns

During Enrique Peña Nieto’s successful campaign for president and during the first months of his administration, beginning in December 2012, he vowed that his government would end the close relationship between Mexican and United States security programs, halting the “perp walks” of captured drug lords and their lieutenants before television cameras.

Some Mexican workers – gardeners, handymen, maids and cooks – employed by foreigners say circumstances change their jobs too often.

The young girl tiptoed along the exposed wild-reed peak of a house.  She maintained her balance with arms outstretched as if she were about to fly.  She held two clay roof tiles in one hand and a near empty-pail of cement in the other.  She was seeking a broom.

Drug gangs are said be pleased as they assess the windfall President Enrique Peña Nieto has handed them by opening Mexico’s 75-year-old state oil company, Pemex, to foreign investors, putting up for grabs this country’s portion of the rich Eagle Ford Shale deposits.

Laundering drug cartel funds fattens the investments and operations of private businesses, the pocketbooks of government officials at all levels, at same as it costs countries – Mexico for instance – large portions of their GDP.

Squinting, there’s a blurred drawing of an ample stone-sided, tile-roofed house. Deciphering faded words, reassembling insect chewed, time-weakened pages, bits of history unfurl.