Oil & Politics in Mexico ABSTRACT The

The experience of boom and collapse in the Mexican oil industry during the 1970s and early 1980s is examined, with particular emphasis on the interrelation between oil and politics in Mexico, and especially on the role of political corruption.

The oil sector has played an important part in twentiethcentury Mexican politics, and even on the shaping of the Mexican national identity. From preColumbian times, natural seepage of oil has been known in Mexico, and seepage oil was used in preColumbian religious ceremonies. During the late nineteenth century, a number of abortive efforts were made to develop oil production in Mexico. A Mexican oil industry came into being only after the turn of the twentieth century, however, and though Mexican expertise was responsible for identification of the first productive fields, the industry was owned and controlled in its early decades by foreign economic interests.

Mexican tradition and its Spanishderived law held that the natural mineral wealth of the country, including its oil reserves, belonged to the state, which held them as a patrimony for the people. During the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, however, foreign capital had been actively sought for development. The consequence had been widening social divisions, and a state of affairs in which a substantial fraction of Mexico's land and other resources were in forei

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ne hundred fiftyeight million dollars. These same ships had originally been offered by a Belgian firm for one hundred twentyfour million dollars. Technical experts at PEMEX had recommended against the purchase, however, as the ships were judged not ________ 1Kenneth F. Johnson, Mexico's Democracy: A Critical View, 2nd ed. (New York: Praeger, 1984), 185. suitable for PEMEX's needs. The Director General had originally backed up his technical staff, but subsequently reversed himself. He and his associates were believed to have pocketed much of the difference. The investigation also revealed that the pressure to buy the ships had originally been exerted by Alicia Lopez Portillo, sister of the former President.2 Diaz Serrano was stripped of his immunity as a Mexican senator and placed on trial. Along with former Mexico City police chief Arturo Durazo Moreno, he was one of the two chief figures in the corruption investigations of the early de la Madrid years. Other spectacular instances of corruption were also revealed, however. The head of the petroleum workers' union (STRPM), Hernandez Galicia, nicknamed "la Quina," had become a powerful if dubious figure in Mexican politics. When police raided his house
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1850
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)