The House of the Scorpion

It took me a little while to figure out what was going on in The House of the Scorpion. The protagonist, Matt, gradually finds out more about his existence. He lives in the world of opium fields between the United States and Mexico. The inhabitants here are a motley bunch, including "eejits" who are laborers that have their intelligence removed (and are treated like as less than human) and a security patrol consisting mostly of men wanted for crimes in other countries. This land of Opium is ruled as an independent country by the ancient "El Patron", who is many decades past his 100th birthday. He likes to consider himself a near diety, similar to ancient Egyptian Pharaohs. We discover that Matt is actually a clone of "El Patron". We later learn that the purpose of these clones is to harvest organs for El Patron. (This is how he has lived to be so old.)
Matt hits puberty as El Patron has heart issues. As he is about to become an unwilling donor, one of his caretakers mentions that she has been feeding him just enough arsenic to make his heart useless for El Patron. This is too much for El Patron, and he dies. In the commotion, some of Matt's friends help him to escape. Matt sneaks across the border and then joins up with a group of other orphans forced to live in a pseudo-Marxist work camp of "the Keapers". He helps expose some hypocrisy of the organization and gets out. He is able to reach the convent where his "girlfriend" is staying. They are able to bust the keepers and then he is sent back to help find out what is wrong with his homeland. He discovers that El Patron had plotted to have the leadership die when he died. The land is in chaos, leaving things set up for a sequel.
There is an elaborate world created in the novel. Alas, the pieces we see don't give us a clear picture. What is the purpose of the "keepers"? Why do people let them exist, while despising them? And why are they busted for drug use, while at the same time El Patron's drug empire is allowed to thrive? What do regular people do? If people can have their intelligence removed to become "dumb laborers", why would regular jobs remain? Could a clone really be made to have the same fingerprints and other identifying markings? (If a clone is such an accurate identical copy, shouldn't we be concerned that Matt will be a megalomaniac dictator like El Patron?)