A traditionalist shines through Mexico's fresh new face

Los Angeles Times

By Richard Fausset

March 10, 2013

MEXICO CITY — They elected a youthful president, a self-styled defender of democratic principles who promised to bring the country up to 21st century standards.

But many Mexicans suspected that an old-fashioned dinosaur heart was beating beneath Enrique Peña Nieto's smartly tailored suits, an inheritance from his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, whose top-down, quasi-authoritarian rule defined much of Mexico's 20th century history.

On Sunday, after 100 days of living under Peña Nieto's rule, the Mexican people have a better idea of the ways in which their 46-year-old president, and his vintage political party, plan to manage the future of the United States' southern neighbor, a country rife with promise and peril. They are also discovering that Peña Nieto may be a kind of hybrid political creature, intent on effecting change while hewing to some of his party's older ways.  Read more. 

Mexico's disappeared

LA Times
Editorial
March 5, 2013

The full human cost of Mexico's bloody drug war during the last six years is only now becoming apparent. Nearly 70,000 people died and more than 26,000 went missing between 2006 and 2012. A scathing new report by Human Rights Watch casts substantial blame for the problem on the country's security forces, which it says have not only been implicated in many of the underlying crimes but have failed to adequately investigate claims by friends and family members of the victims. The result, the report says, is the "most severe crisis of enforced disappearances in Latin America in decades."

Human Rights Watch researchers looked into a few hundred cases and confirmed 149 examples of enforced disappearances by security forces. They described a pattern in which uniformed soldiers or police detain people without arrest orders or probable cause — at their homes, in front of family members, at checkpoints or in public settings. The arrests are almost never officially registered and the arrestees are not turned over to the prosecutor's office, as required by law. When relatives arrive to ask about the detainees, the report said, "they are told that the detentions never took place."

These are familiar allegations. But Human Rights Watch also shows how the authorities fail to follow up or investigate — declining to trace cellphones or obtain footage from security cameras or track the bank transactions of the disappeared.  Read more. 

Mexico: Hope grows for the missing

GlobalPost
Dudley Althaus
March 5, 2013 06:01

SALTILLO, Mexico — Burly as a linebacker, Rogelio Elizondo remained dry-eyed as he described scouring websites devoted to Mexico's gangland savagery, hoping to somehow recognize his long-missing son amid photos of fresh victims or decayed remains pulled from clandestine graves.

“You get accustomed to it,” he said.

It’s a task to which he's turned after other options faded for finding the 23-year-old engineering student, also named Rogelio, who disappeared nearly two years ago on a trip near the South Texas border. “You start to assimilate it, little by little.”

Then, asked how the fruitless search has affected himself, his wife and two daughters, 49-year-old's stoicism evaporated in a blink, sobs surging from deep in his chest, tears flowing down cheeks. Read more. 

Mexico edges toward letting foreign oil firms invest in Pemex

Los Angeles Times
By Tracy Wilkinson and Shan Li
March 4, 2013

MEXICO CITY — Mexico's ruling party has taken a step toward opening its state oil company to outsiders, a move that could eventually allow U.S. oil firms to drill south of the border.

In an important test of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto's sway over resistant factions of his party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party has changed its bylaws to clear the way for changes at Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.

Pemex, a symbol of nationalist pride, is the top source of tax revenue for the Mexican government. But its production of oil has been declining dramatically and the company is in dire need of outside expertise for deep-sea exploration.

On Sunday, PRI, as the party is known, passed several changes that Peña Nieto needed for the reforms he promised as a hallmark of his administration. Chief and most difficult among them is opening the behemoth Pemex to private and foreign investment, long a taboo in this country.  Read more. 

Mexico wants U.S. ties to focus on economy, education, not drugs

Reuters
By Dave Graham
Mar 4, 2013

Mexico must give greater priority to economic cooperation and education in relations with the United States rather than allowing the fight against organized crime to take center stage, a senior Mexican official said on Monday.

Mexico has spent the past six years locked in a bloody fight with powerful drug cartels whose killings, kidnappings and extortion have marred the country's image, particularly in the United States, where it ships nearly 80 percent of its exports.

President Enrique Pena Nieto is keen to rewrite the script, focusing his efforts on the economy, which has grown at a faster pace than the United States' in the last three years.

Pena Nieto's conservative predecessor, Felipe Calderon, staked his name on crushing the gangs, but by the time he left office at the end of November nearly 70,000 people had died in the violence, and his efforts were widely condemned as a failure.  Read more. 

Mexico’s ruling party votes to reform energy sector, allow sales tax on food, medicines

The Washington Post
March 3, 2013

Mexico City -  Mexico’s ruling party changed its platform on Sunday to allow for private investment in the oil industry, paving the way for a possible overhaul of a state-owned company that is seen as a pillar of the nation.

Nearly 5,000 members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, also known as the PRI, voted unanimously at their national convention to remove language in the party’s platform that for years had opposed injecting private money in the sector. Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, is the only company that can carry out oil refining. The party also erased its opposition to sales taxes on food and medicines.

President Enrique Pena Nieto, who led last year’s electoral comeback for the party that governed from 1929 to 2000, said the energy and fiscal reforms are needed for Mexico to become more competitive. He urged party members to support him when he sends the bills to Congress, likely in the second half of this year.

“The PRI is seeking renovation to bring the changes Mexico needs,” Pena Nieto told a crowd of thousands. “The PRI is not pleased and it is choosing to reexamine and redefine where it stands on the challenges facing the country.”  Read more. 

If Mexico wants to launch anti-corruption crusade, there are plenty of officials to go after

Miami Herald 
By Tim Johnson
McClatchy Newspapers

Mexico City -- The daughter of the boss of Mexico’s powerful oil workers union made a youthful indiscretion when she went to Europe last year: She posted photos of her lavish odyssey on Facebook.

The images showed Paulina Romero Deschamps touring French chateaus, staying with her three pet English bulldogs in five-star hotels, and living it up like the daughter of a sultan. She noted her fondness for Hermes calfskin Birkin handbags (price tag: $12,000) and praised the rare Spanish Vega Sicilia wines, which can cost nearly $1,000 a bottle.

Romero’s father, Carlos Romero Deschamps, is indeed a sultan of sorts. As head of the 142,000-member state oil workers union since 1996, he controls the purse strings of an important union – and tells its members how to vote. His daughter’s trip sparked a media furor when the photos hit a Mexico City newspaper in May. Paulina’s Facebook page went silent.

Union bosses like Romero are suddenly in the news in Mexico. Last week, authorities arrested Elba Esther Gordillo, head of the national teachers union, and charged her with corruption and organized crime. Mexico’s attorney general accused her of using $200 million in union funds for shopping trips, facelifts and real estate sprees in California. Mexico’s new president, Enrique Pena Nieto, told a national television audience that his 3-month-old government would not abide by the misuse of union funds.  Read more.