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Day two of New Mexico State University’s Justice for Women Symposium began with a four panel discussion in the Music Recital Hall. Neil Harvey, department chair of Latin American Studies, moderated the event.
Cynthia Kicker and her husband Ulises Perzabal chaired the panel, both served 18 months in a Chihuahua prison.
“In May 2003 we were taken out of our home,” stated Kiecker, “and they took us to a Chihuahua prison.” She took the audience back to the day she and her husband Perbazal, were dragged out of their home with their heads covered, receiving continuous shock treatments. “The whole time they were telling us a false story and we were told to repeat it,” said Kiecker.
Kiecker spoke of the screams she heard from the next room. “It was my husband, and they were torturing him with electronic shocks.”
“I had a gun put to my head,” said Perzabal, “in my own home, they covered my wife’s head with a plastic bag, and who would do a thing like that?”
“We were not the same way when we went in as when we came out,” said Perzabal, “my wife suffered and I was dumped in water and paint was thrown at me.”
Both Perzabal and Kiecker endured dark days the Chihuahua prison, and she explained that they were told they both had double personalities and that they were criminals.
As Perzabal continued to speak his voice grew louder and the audience received his message. “We lost our home, we lost our store,” said Perzabal.
The audience was shown a video of Juarez lawyer, Sergio Dante Almaroz Mora, 53, who talked in detail about eight women who went missing.
“The eight women died at different times,” said Dante Almaroz Mora, “they were dumped in different places.” He said the autopsy showed the eight women had all been strangled to death and beaten with a baseball bat. The women were also brutally tortured and were forced to leave video messages. “I believe they were refrigerated at some point,” said Dante Almaroz Mora.
Dante Almaroz Mora was scheduled to speak at the Justice for Women symposium, but in January he was gunned down while driving his SUV in downtown Juarez. The state police said the autopsy shows he was shot 10 times with three shots to the head and five to the left side of the neck.
“Sergio couldn’t be here because he was assassinated in Juarez,” said Harvey.
Also presenting at the panel discussion were Oscar Maynez, a forensic scientist from the 2001 cases, and Maria Guadalupe Morfin Otero, a special commissioner appointed to eradicate and prevent crimes against women in Cuidad Juarez/Chihuahua.
The event was sponsored by, “The New Mexico Humanities Council, President Michael Martin, Dean Waded Cruzado-Salas, College of Arts and Sciences, Frontera Women’s Fund, V-Day, Amnesty International, Students of Aqui se puede, NMSU WAVE, Border Book Festival, National Endowment for the Humanities, the Lannan Foundation of Santa Fe, Amigos de las Mujeres de Juarez, Nuestra Voz, Alma d’ Arte and Dona Ana Branch Culinary Program.”
