“We’re so accustomed to corruption that nobody does anything. Nobody protests.”
I visit and vacation in Mexico yearly and wish the "little people" a better gov`t and bright future but until there is a revolution akin to the French Revolution this state of corruption will continue.
“A $100 Million Bribe to the President ?” also suggests a possible payment to Trump.. Come on NYT. Surely you’re better that.
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The title says 'Mexicans met the testimony with skepticism' is not true. Why does the NYTimes do this? Mexicans met the testimony with apathy - they know it happens all the time and nothing is ever done to stop it; they also have more urgent needs like gas due to shortage.
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@Ma Actually, the article shows that some met it with apathy, most in the know seemed to have met it with skepticism, and the last person quoted believed it and wanted action. As the article points out, there is good reason to be skeptical about it because Pena Nieto was instrumental in Guzman's two arrests and extradition and because the testimony was itself heresay, what one drug dealer said Guzman told him without any apparent corroboration.
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@Ma Actually, the article shows that some met it with apathy, most in the know seemed to have met it with skepticism, and the last person quoted believed it and wanted action. As the article points out, there is good reason to be skeptical about it because Pena Nieto was instrumental in Guzman's two arrests and extradition and because the testimony was itself hearsay, what one drug dealer said Guzman told him without any apparent corroboration.
Politicians always find a way to get paid. They facilitate the easy money, wherever it is. Here, they go to Wall Street for their payout after they retire from office. In Mexico, they get paid while working. Mexicans are not surprised because they already know that everyone in power gets a "bite."
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@michael
Some get paid by making speeches to Wall Street, while others get $60 million book deals, and some get both.
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Come on, headline writers! Who is making this accusation? Don't publish this as though it is a proven fact.
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@Kay Tee
Now you finally understand the desk book of the NY Times. In case you are unfamiliar with a desk book- it is a set of journalistic guidelines for editors and reporters to follow. Then again, I am not sure the NY Times has one.
PS: To be fair, they did put a question mark on it.
M L Shyres
University of Missouri School of Journalism (Columbia, MO), Class of 1966.
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For the headline to read Mexicans "shrug," is misleading. I live in Mexico and can tell you that people are concerned, but like many, before condemning peña Nieto, they want to wait for the evidence, and certainly Obregon will have a stake in condemning the PRI if there is something to this allegation.
Mexico, like the U.S. with its corporate "donations" has a problem with corruption, but I can tell you form people who have experienced living here for a lot more years than I have, the landscape has changed drastically in the last few years.
You no longer pay bribes to policemen (in fact, I have a friend who was almost arrested for attempting it), you do not pay bribes to get any bureaucratic business done as was standard in the past) and votes are counted fairly and are not decided by an electoral college.
Yes, there is gross inefficiency here and the problem of cartels (who get their weapons legally from the U.S.) and the stealing of gas will take a long time to address and fix. But Mexicans are working on it. Give them a chance. It takes a long time to live down a bad reputation. Scandal lasts in the minds of people more than efforts of reform.
So far, this accusation of Peńa Nieto is speculation based on the word of a man who had a vendetta. Mexicans are waiting for it to play out in the public courts and in the legal courts, if need be. They are not shrugging and they are not jumping to the same conclusions the U.S is so quick to do.
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"The judge in the case pointed out that Mr. Cifuentes had not testified about something he had done or seen himself, but had merely told the jury something that Mr. Guzmán had told him."
Isn't that the definition of hearsay? Why was Cifuentes's allegation even admissible?
If Guzman's lawyers cannot produce substantiating evidence, then at least they should provide a narrative that makes sense. Indeed, why didn't El Chapo's $100 million bribe buy him any protection from Peña Nieto, the man who hunted down El Chapo, arrested him (twice) and turned him over to the United States? What happened? Explain that.
Otherwise, this just sounds like a couple of narcos getting even with the guy who got them.
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Meanwhile up here the revelation about the FBI investigating the President of the United States as a Russian agent or at least an unwitting stooge was met with barely a shrug. Especially by members of his own party.
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@Pat, barely a shrug? It’s on the front pages of major media and mainstream media on a daily basis!
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@larryo -- True, Larryo….but Corruption in the USA is generally a subtle, indirect and well-masked choreograph, even though its effects (e.g., destruction of the middle class) are epidemic. As for your "Drug War," down here we all know that the DEA, FBI, regularly whack up drug profits together in the hard-count rooms of Sinaloa cartels.
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@larryo
Yes, barely a shrug compared to the effect that same announcement would have had on any other Presidency. But with Trump, it's just another day.