As new municipal and state governments took office in early December and this month, the many and various mayors and their staffs began taking inventories of what they had inherited from their preceeding municipal governments. It is apparently not a pretty picture.
In the state of Jalisco (Guadalahara) alone, Reforma was able to interview 54 of 125 new municipal governments and the newspaper was informed that incoming mayors had found, so far, almost 50 million dollars in heretofore unknown municipal debt, missing records, erased computer files, ghost employees, and in one case, 3 years worth of municipal records filed at the local garbage dump.
In the municipality of Tonalá, ex mayor Palemón García Real left behind an unpublicized and illegal municipal debt of almost 23 million dollars. In El Salto, former mayor Bertha Alicia Moreno walked away with her little municipality still in hock for almost 4 million dollars in previously unreported debt.
In Cocula, the new mayor was unable to establish the existance of numerous municipal employees on the payroll for the last three years.
In Zacoalco de Torres the new mayor's staff arrived to computers with no files left on hard drives. In Zapotlán el Grande, all the computer files for the local DIF and Public Works secretariats had been erased.
In Totatiche the new municipal government had to visit the local garbage dump to retrieve three years worth of municipal historical archives. They haven't found it all yet.
The new mayors of both Tonaya y Mazamitla must riding to work in taxis, as well as the local police forces, because municipal vehicles had been sold at the last minute by the previous administrations to pay off their illegal municipal debts. Try to imagine that. You call the fire department and the fire fighters arrive in taxis because their fire truck is sitting in some rich guy's back yard in Sonora or someplace with his kids exitedly climbing over, under and all through it.
What a joke. And this is just in 54 of 125 municipalities in 1 of 31 Mexican states. Try to imagine the no doubt similar conditions of all the rest. Reforma says it tried to contact "the majority" of the new municipal governments in Jalisco (which could be anything from 63 to 124 - Reforma doesn't say) but "couldn't find some of them and others refused to be interviewed".
That circumstance can be attributed to the following: If the new municipal governmment is from the same political party as the previous one, there is not going to be the forehead slapping, "Oh my God! That last bunch was a gang of crooks," type of announcement. Instead, there will either be a quiet attempt to clean up the mess while being richly rewarded by the escaping criminal class for keeping one's mouth shut, or, what is even more likely, the incoming mafia will "Root, hog. Root," to get theirs just like the last bunch did.
As one watches and reads about all the turmoil the length and breadth of Mexico over "corrupt government", one has to wonder, "What corrupt government?" "Where does all this corrupt government come from?" It comes, unfortunately, directly from the people. La Raza. Aztlan.
There is no "elite governing class" in Mexico, such as in France or San Francisco. There is no ruling strata which hands down the reins of power from one generation of theives to another, at least in the thousands of little municipalities all over the country. No, the theft and corruption is widespread and institutionalized. It exists in and is a fundamental part of the PRI (which we all knew), the PAN, the PRD, the PVEM, the PT, and all the rest of the marginal political parties. It's La Raza. It's Aztlan.
The corruption permeates the tens of thousands of NGO's from Tijuana to San Cristóbal de las Casas, from Triquis to Tarahumaras, from Yaqui to Maya. It pervades the many and various local, state and federal police forces. Its tentacles reach into the Mexican military. And I do not speak of narco-corruption. That's a realatively new deal. If I want a permit to haul around a .45 ACP, I have to buy it from a general. That's been the case for a hundred years or so.
Corruption is La Raza. Corruption is Aztlan. Robin Hood in the perverse. Stealing from the poor to give to the rich. And if you're not rich, gaining political office will soon make you rich.
Carlos Hank González famously once said, "Show me a politician who is poor and I'll show you a poor politician." His son, Jorge Hank Rhon, is now mayor of Tijuana and will no doubt soon be governor of Baja California Norte. Who elected Carlos Hank González mayor of Mexico City and governor of Mexico state and made him a billionaire? La Raza. Aztlan.
Who elected his criminal son mayor of Tijuana and who will put him in the state governor's mansion? La Raza. Aztlan.
The tens of thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of Mexicans marching in the streets demanding clean government and blaming all their woes on the Gringos had best take a long hard look inside themselves and at La Raza. Their besmirched Aztlan is exactly what they themselves have built.
for art, gifts and collectibles -- all hand made
by Mexican indigenous artists.
Thanks!
Cross posted at Pale Horse Galleries
TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Jalisco, Mexico, La Raza, Aztlan
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