EDUCATION-MEXICO: Suicide Weakens Opposition to Backpack Searches

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, May 24 2001 (IPS) - The bullet with which a middle-school student shot himself in front of his classmates and teachers in Mexico City has diluted the opposition to a nationwide programme in which students’ backpacks are searched for weapons or drugs.

Diego Rosales, 14, held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger on Tuesday. He was declared brain-dead on Thursday.

The incident has provided the government with a poignant new argument for continuing the “Safe Backpack” programme, adopted by education authorities in Mexico’s 31 states as well as the federal district of Mexico City, against the opposition of human rights groups and parents associations, which argue that it violates the students’ right to privacy.

But parents of Diego’s schoolmates are now demanding that the bags of all students be checked as they enter the facility.

“Safe Backpack” was announced in March, but has not been implemented in all of Mexico’s schools, because parents associations have complained that it is not an effective mechanism and merely spreads alarm and fear among students.

The Mexico City government’s Human Rights Commision joined its voice to the opposition, arguing that the searches intimidated students and created an adverse climate for education.

The alarm over weapons in Mexico’s schools was first sounded in the wake of a string of high school shootings in the United States. But worries rose sharply after a 12-year-old in northern Mexico tried to shoot his teacher in February, complaining that the teacher pressured him too much.

Although no one was injured in that incident, education authorities were quick to call for measures aimed at preventing a fatal shooting from occurring in the schools, and the “Safe Backpack” programme began to be put into effect.

The school where Diego Rosales shot himself, in the poor neighbourhood of Iztapalapa, had not joined the programme. In his suicide note, the teenager complained of family pressure with respect to his studies.

Teachers in public schools, especially in poor districts, protest that many students come to class armed or on drugs. Other youngsters say the school toughs issue threats, even death threats.

Carlos, a father who called a radio station to express his opposition to the backpack searches and who did not want to provide his last name, said he had given his 17-year-old son a low- calibre gun to defend himself from “the delinquents in the streets and in school.

“If the police don’t defend him, then he’ll have to do it himself,” said Carlos.

The number of crimes reported annually in this country of 100 million rose from 809,000 to 1.5 million between 1991 and 1999. The number of drug users, meanwhile, climbed from 1.5 million in 1993 to 2.5 million in 1998.

Buying a gun or drugs is not difficult in Mexico, especially in the capital. For less than 160 dollars, anyone can easily purchase a pistol, for example, in Tepito, a downtown Mexico City neighbourhood where virtually anything can be found, including a gram of cocaine for just five dollars.

From December 2000 to last April, the police confiscated 1,500 firearms and around 15,000 rounds of ammunition, and arrested 500 people for illegal weapons possession – double the figures corresponding to the same period two years earlier.

More than 80 percent of the firearms that enter Mexico legally or illegally come from the United States. In that country, a total of 17,875 registered establishments sell guns just in the area along the border with Mexico.

There are a number of places where students can get hold of guns or drugs, said Martha Gándara, a mother who accompanies her 10-year-old son to school everyday. She warned that if something was not done, another tragedy would occur.

The carrying of guns by students is already considered a source of alarm, Luis García, with the Mexico City crime prevention division of the attorney-general’s office, warned back in April.