THE BORDER REPORT

So, so far we're up to 72 people in that mass grave near Matamoros; then two car-bombs in Cd. Victoria, then the killing of the ministerio publico into the murders. He was found on the highway. Still want to tell me it's the Zetas? Pres. Felipe Calderón has been expounding on the point for days now, insisting that these migrants had been killed because they refused to work for the Zetas. Again with the Zetas. Last year, when the killings began along the Guatemala border, that was blamed on the Zetas, too. In fact, every time a new travesty breaks out, it's usually the Zetas who are blamed. Not, mind you, that I have any love for the Zetas, but I do appreciate facts when I come across them and this excuse of the Zetas has been used so many times, it's grown wearisome and frankly, suspect. Let's be clear here; Calderón has no proof. At last count, 31 of the 72 bodies had been identified. If the Mexican government can't even identify the bodies of the dead, how are they going to identify the motive?  They're not, it's ridiculous. In fact, he actually doesn't know, he's guessing. This is what he says about the Zetas in a press release issued this morning:

"Son ellos los que están recurriendo a la extorsión y al secuestro de migrantes como mecanismo de financiamiento y de reclutamiento debido a que están enfrentando una situación muy adversa para abastecerse de recursos y de personas." Very roughly: "It is they who keep returning to extortion and kidnapping of migrants as the financial mechanism and recruiting plan because they are facing a very adverse situation to supply themselves with resources and manpower."

In other words, this is their modus operandi, and therefore, it is they who did this. The president is taking much the same tack as his American counterparts. In the Americans' case, they say the same thing about smugglers in general. Calderón's convenient boogeyman is more specific, the Zetas. That's obscene. I'm going to go more with the Rev. Pedro Pantoja, director of the Casa del Migrante in Saltillo who tells  The AP: "The permissiveness and complicity of the Mexican state with criminals ... is just as much to blame."