El Salvador says Mexico not to blame in migrant massacre; Mexican leader lashes out at US

Mexico lashes out at US after migrant massacre

MEXICO CITY — President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador said Friday he doesn’t blame Mexico’s government for the massacre of 72 mainly Central American migrants, and called for a joint effort to fight drug cartels.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Funes said after their meeting that the two countries have formed a high-level working group to develop joint strategies for combatting the drug gangs.

“We have come to have a conversation with the president of Mexico, not to condemn him or criticize him,” Funes said. “Rather the opposite, to show him our support and offer our help in this fight.”

Thirteen Salvadorans were among the dead identified so far in the massacre in late August, a killing blamed on one of Mexico’s drug cartels, the Zetas.

In a separate interview Friday, Calderon said the migrant massacre doesn’t undermine Mexico’s moral authority to demand better treatment for its own migrants.

“Of course we have the moral authority, because Mexican officials are not shooting Central American youths at the border, but U.S. agents are shooting Mexican migrants,” Calderon said in an interview with the Spanish-language Univision network.

“If we are talking about responsibility, at the root of this, in the case of immigration, is the lack of immigration legislation in the United States that would recognize this phenomenon,” Calderon said.

Funes, however, said during his joint appearance with Calderon that the home nations of migrants bear some of the responsibility for immigration problems.

“In part, the greatest responsibility lies with our governments, the Salvadoran government, for not having generated the employment conditions, the welfare conditions, that doesn’t leave our migrants any choice but to look for other opportunities in the United States and Canada.”

The massacred migrants were attempting to cross Mexico to reach the U.S. border when they were kidnapped by a group of Zeta gunmen, according to a man who survived the massacre.