Dean Henderson: Who is Behind the Mexican Drug Cartels?

By the time George W Bush moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2001, his Harken Energy scam had been brushed under the dirty rug that passes for history. But his allegiance to the Four Horsemen and the Houston oil mafia never wavered. Bush stressed the importance of Latin America throughout his campaign, and touted his Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed with Canada and Mexico in the 1990's. FTAA would create a free trade zone from the Yukon to Tierra del Fuego, and would be a Big Oil bonanza. One of its biggest promoters was Bechtel. Four Horsemen executives began frequenting the offices of PEMEX, the Mexican national oil company. Thomas Clines' and Ted Shackley's Houston based API Distributors sold PEMEX oil drilling equipment, and gathered intelligence for Big Oil. Deals proceeded, including one that called for PEMEX to keep the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve fully stocked. Exxon bought Mexico's Compania General de Lubricantes in 1991. The Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), would create a free trade zone from the Yukon to Tierra del Fuego, and would be a Big Oil bonanza. One of its biggest promoters was Bechtel. Bush met with Mexican President Vicente Fox, former Coca Cola executive who owns a vast commercial farming empire, before meeting any other foreign head of state. While Bush touted FTAA, Fox hyped his Puebla to Panama free trade scheme for Central America. Key to the latter plan is construction of a dry canal across the Tehauntepec Isthmus from the oil port of Coatzacoalas on the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific port of Salina Cruz. Financial backing for the plan is pledged by the World Bank, World Trade Organization, and US Treasury Department. The plan would set up maquiladoras in southern Mexico, just as Fox's predecessor Ernesto Zedillo had done along the US Mexican border, following the 1995 implementation of NAFTA. Increasing worker demands and labor unrest at the northern plants, had multinationals looking south. Wages there averaged 40% less, and neighboring Guatemala could supply even cheaper labor. By the end of 2002, ninety two maquiladoras set up shop in southern Mexico. The new canal would be their shipping outlet.