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.
With characteristic blind self-admiration the cheering of the country’s political and economic elites drowned out the reportedly more widespread, less publicized rejoicing of Mexico’s ruthless cartelistas.
For knowledgeable observers it seems that the “elite cheering” comes from people sporting symptoms of, perhaps, A.D.H.D. – attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. They don’t seem to sense exactly what’s going on around them. They fail to comprehend what a map of Mexico displays. The oil deposits are in the north. What else is in the north? The blood-drenched playgrounds of drug cartels of various merciless instincts: The Sinaloa Cartel’s ever resourceful reach, also that of the Gulf Cartel, plus the presence the torture-prone Zetas. Will newcomers from foreign oil and gas companies be cartel wise? Doubtful. For it’s clear that targeted local Mexican officials who should be wise to cartel habits are too frequently murdered as they travel some highway they’re sure is “safe,” confidently dine at a “secure” restaurants.