KIDNAP THREATS DEMAND MEXICO TEACHERS' BONUSES

Ciudad Juarez, Mexico -- Fourth-grader Ricardo Ivan Ortega knows he
is a target in this violent city. His school closed temporarily last
month after an anonymous note demanded teachers hand over their
year-end bonuses - or students would be kidnapped.

Ricardo has a plan.

"I will just hide," the shy 9-year-old said in late November, waiting
in the family car while his mother inquired when Luis Urias
Elementary would reopen. "My mom told me not to get near the front
gate, and if I need to, to run out of my classroom."

Across 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 another school, the Elena Garro
kindergarten, demanding: "Either give us your bonuses, or we will
start to kidnap the children."

Police removed it before the children arrived.

Some speculate that cartels now are targeting schools to supplement
income with the Mexican government's crackdown on drug trafficking,
much as they've already extorted businesses. Others say common
criminals are trying to cash in on the fear that pervades border
cities, where terrified residents are seeing ever more brutal murders
- - more than 1,300 so far this year in Ciudad Juarez.

"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, who talked to a
reporter through a chain-link fence.

Classes at Luis Urias have now resumed without incident. Luis Urias
officials wouldn't discuss the threats, but they were confirmed by parents.

Guillermo Narro, the state education secretary's official in Ciudad
Juarez, said only one threat was found, the sign at Elena Garro,
which closed briefly but is now operating normally. But a reporter
found at least four schools had closed.

At the colorfully painted Yitzurani kindergarten, a woman who
identified herself as a teacher but declined to give her name said
only about half the students have returned since classes resumed there.

Nobody knows whether the threats are real or a prank in this city of
1.5 million across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. The schools
received no instructions on how or to whom the teachers would hand
over their bonuses, usually paid Dec. 15, to prevent the kidnappings.

City officials have sent hundreds of unarmed police academy cadets to
patrol schools and try to ease fears.

There have been no arrests or suspects in Ciudad Juarez. But seven
police officers detained for allegedly taking drug money in nearby
Ascension told authorities they were ordered to threaten teachers for
their bonuses, a police news release said.

Narro said education officials have changed how and when the bonuses
will be distributed because of the threats, though he wouldn't
elaborate for security reasons. Amounts vary across Mexico and in
some parts are equivalent to three months' pay. Teachers can make up
to $840 a month, according to Mexico's education secretary.

Mexico's children are increasingly caught in the middle of the
country's escalating drug violence, with bullet-riddled bodies - and
even a human head - dumped outside schools in border cities.

Mexican officials say they don't track the number of child deaths
from drug-gang violence. But in Tijuana, another border city, 37
slayings one recent weekend included two brothers, ages 4 and 13,
killed when gunmen opened fire on a convenience store, and a
14-year-old boy working at a locksmith's kiosk when gunmen attacked a
neighboring business. A 12-year-old boy was killed the same weekend
when bullets sprayed the car he was riding in.

Many Ciudad Juarez children and parents have had to hide on the floor
of their cars as hit men opened fire in afternoon traffic. Instead of
cowboys and Indians, preschoolers pretend to be assassins and tell
people they are carrying imaginary AK-47s, their parents say.

Last month, seven men with their hands bound were shot to death in
front of a soccer field next to the private Sierra Madre school,
which runs from kindergarten through high school. Security guards
kept students from walking through the field lined by a bloodstained curb.

Sierra Madre officials say they believe the killers picked the
location because it is relatively isolated, and the bodies were not
placed as threats.

Teacher Lilia Perales says that people cannot give into fear and that
she will dock students who do not come to class, even if they are too afraid.

"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."