Calderon Passes the Peso

Pesident Felipe Calderon

From the El Paso Times - 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. Read more here:

Calderon Passes the Peso