Mexico's Violence closes schools as Teachers and Students are Threatened
Threatened Red Cross Closes Work in Quetta
Teaching Teachers to Respect Students
The Waning Relationship between Teachers and Students: Is It Really Waning?
Are Tunisian Women's Rights Threatened?
Teachers are the backbones of our society
Across the bordertown of Ciudad Juarez, parents and students are stricken by reports of kidnapping and extortion threats, starting with a sign that appeared Nov. 12 on the front door of the Elena Garro kindergarten, demanding: "Give give us your bonuses, or we will start to kidnap the children." City Police removed the threatening poster before the children arrived.
Many feel that the narco-cartels now are targeting schools to supplement income due to Mexico's government crackdown on drug trafficking. Others say common small time criminals are trying to cash in on the desperate fear among border cities, where terrified residents are seeing ever more brutal murders — more than 1,600 so far this year in Ciudad Juarez alone.
"This is part of the psychosis caused by the situation between the cartels, and other gangs are taking advantage of that to make money," said Luis Urias sixth-grade teacher Martin Valles
Nobody can say for sure whether the threats are real or a prank, but seven police officers detained for allegedly taking drug money in nearby Ascension told authorities they were ordered to threaten teachers for their Christmas bonuses which are usually paid on December 15th. At the present time, teachers have recieved no further threats or instructions of how or to whom they would need to hand over their bonuses.
The traditional Christmas aguinaldo or bonus varies across the across the nation, but is generally equivilant to one to three months pay. State and Federal union school teachers earn between $460 and $810 U.S. dollars per month depending on degree, district and senority.
Mexico's border city children are increasingly caught in the middle of the country's escalating drug violence, with bullet-riddled, tortured, mutilated bodies and human heads dumped outside schools. Many Ciudad Juarez children and parents have had to hide on the floor of their cars as cartel hit men opened fire in afternoon traffic, plazas, and parks. Parents say instead of cowboys and Indians, preschoolers pretend to be narco assassins and tell people they are carrying imaginary AK-47s and grenades.
"A lot of my colleagues are really scared, but I don't think classes should be suspended," says the veteran fifth-grade teacher at Luis Arnoldo Nunez elementary school. "The children are going to fall behind, and it will just give the bad guys what they want — which is to terrorize us so they can have absolute control over life here. Acting out of fear is not the solution."
Unfortunatly, it's much easier said than done. For many bordertown parents it is a daily dilemma to decide what is more important; education or security for their children.
"We just want some kind of assurance that it's safe to send our children to school," says Elvia, 33, who declined to give her last name out of fear the gangs may track down her three children. "Until now, schools were like a second home for us. But my son now talks about hit men and federal police, and he is barely 5. The children are losing their innocence because there is so much crime."
Last month, seven men with their hands bound were shot to death and lined up in front of a soccer field next to the private Sierra Madre school, which runs from kindergarten through high school. On September 30, a dozen tortured bodies were thrown near a school in Tijuana.
City officials have sent hundreds of unarmed police academy cadets to patrol schools and try to ease fears, but many schools remain closed and others with less than half of it's students. For the time being, the bordertown schools, parents, and students, along with the nation are holding their breath and praying for Monday, December 15, 2008 to come and go without incident of violence and death.
