When crime is unchecked

EXACTLY 200 years ago, in the badlands of southwestern Mexico, rebels fighting Spanish rule drafted the country’s first political charter. The so-called Constitution of Apatzingán of October 22nd 1814 attempted to set out a framework for the rule of law, but it was never adopted; its intellectual author, José María Morelos, was shot by a firing squad a year afterwards.

Many constitutions later, the area round Apatzingán shows how far Mexico still has to go before becoming a law-abiding country. Known as Tierra Caliente (hot land) it has been the scene of a mass abduction and a massacre, both allegedly carried out by state security forces against unarmed civilians. The two atrocities seem serious enough to change the course of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s two-year-old government. Mr Peña has prioritised economic reform, and played down law and order, as the way to modernise Mexico, without admitting that both are equally important. “He had the pieces but he never had the picture of the whole puzzle, and now he’s paying the price,” says Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister.