Threats and extortion from cartel enforcers have closed 140 elementary and middle schools in and around Acapulco. More than 600 teachers have quit after receiving a written demand of a “derecho de piso”, or tax, amounting to 50 percent of their annual salaries.
Assistant Coordinator of Basic Education with the Guerrero Department of Education for the Acapulco-Coyuca de Benitez region, Julio Cesar Bernal Resendiz, has confirmed the threat believed to have been issued by the hyper-violent organized crime group known as La Barredora.
La Barredora is infamous for extorting working class people in this region and often publicly displays the beheaded remains of those who refuse to cooperate with them.
What follows is the text of a letter sent to the Acapulco public education system:
“Greetings Professor (name withheld), we know you are the paymaster for the teachers in area (redacted.
Pay careful attention.
You have 15 days to give us a list of the following teachers:
1. Whoever earns more than $8,000.00 (8 thousand pesos) biweekly.
(underline in black whoever earns between 20 and 50 thousand pesos monthly)
2. Those who live from La Cima to KM 30 and Cayaco.
3. Names, addresses and telephone numbers (not cell phone numbers)
4. Legible copies of voter registration cards (on the reverse the names and addresses of schools where they work)
5. A copy of the payroll (of all area 32)
Note the name and school where they work of any person who refuses to divulge any information. Show them this warning.
Advise them that after October 1 they must pay a “tax” of 50 percent of their salary and annual bonus. Whoever refuses has the opportunity to leave, if not you all know we are not (expletive) around.
You and your supervisor are exempt from this tax as long as you continue cooperating with us.
The teacher who lives close to the jail named Cermeno or Cerdeno is also exempt because he has already cooperated.
If you have problematic teachers underline them in red and advise the principals that we are aware of the high cost to the heads of families and that they will receive a special visit.
We will be in contact.”
Last week, two elementary school teachers spoke on the condition of anonymity to the Libertad newspaper, saying:
“I am a professor in Acapulco, we are afraid about what is going on, we have received written messages that say they will take 50 percent of our wages and we are afraid, according to one of the teachers.
“We agreed to stop classes since Wednesday until the authorities can resolve this."
“Several teachers have been kidnapped, or extorted and most do not want to talk, but we're tired of so much violence. I have fear there may be retaliation.”
Another teacher working in Ciudad Renaciminto, said "It's very difficult to explain this, but the reasons why many coworkers are failing to go to their classrooms is because we are living this firsthand. We therefore call on the authorities to help us. Because we are being harassed, threatened, kidnapped.”
This latest threat understandably has parents in fear for the lives of their children.
Three weeks ago, gunmen forced their way into a school and abducted a teenage student whose body was later discovered in La Sabana.
At one time, dead children were usually the unintended victims of armed attacks on the streets of Mexico. However, in recent months, the cartels have been specifically targeting children with alarming frequency in order to send a message of their growing dominance in a country consumed by wholesale violence.
The Child Rights Network (CRN) estimates that 994 people under the age of 18 were murdered in drug-related violence between 2006 and 2010 in Mexico.
Juan Martin Perez, director of CRN in Mexico recently told The Washington Post: “Decapitations and hanging bodies from bridges send a message. Killing children is an extension of this trend.”
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