Stop deception – Fighters are not terrorist

This is a political trial against revolutionaries who chose armed struggle to overthrow capitalism, the State, and the criminal regime which you, as judges, are here to defend.

Your court is a special tribunal set up by American and British imperialists and by the guardians of the Greek state, who have imposed anti-terrorism laws and special rules that decide on the sanctions and make sentences heavier. They introduced special courts inside the prison, in a suffocating security environment which badly affects the publicity on the trial in order to prevent people from listening to the revolutionaries’ political opinions. On this occasion they applied special conditions of detention, with the aim of strengthening the repression against armed resistance and the revolutionary organization of armed actions in Greece.

All this because the previous repressive regime was labelled as insufficient and ineffective, as it did not have any special bill concerning ‘the formation of terrorist organizations’ and the citizens of the jury were active. Even if you do not recognize political opponents and political prisoners, you are demonstrating – by enforcing special laws and measures against us and by judging us in a special court – that you indirectly recognize us as political enemies, dangerous for the political and economic regime that you serve, unlike all those your Power consider ‘ordinary criminals’.

In this way you are demonstrating that power deeply hates its political enemies. Moreover, which authority has ever officially recognized political opponents and enemies?

The warriors of ELAS (Greek Popular Liberation Army) during the fascist occupation, and the Democratic Army of Greece during the civil war, were treated as ‘bandits’ [symmorites] by the treacherous monarchist-fascist regime in the postwar period, and judged by a special military court. The members of armed organizations are persecuted as ‘terrorist’ and judged by special courts like this one. The label ‘terrorist’ is applied to revolutionary fighters by all forms of government, no matter if they are military regimes or dictatorships, like that of 1967–1974, the constitutional oligarchy of the postwar years, which was euphemistically called ‘democracy’, or the current junta of traitors and collaborators of the PASOK government, which is putting the people into the hands of the oligarchic power of the international economy by signing the memorandum treaty.

All the freedom fighters and armed fighters of the world have been persecuted with the charge of being ‘terrorist’: the Red Brigades in Italy, the members of RAF, the June 2 Movement, the Revolutionary Cells of West German, the Cells of Communist Combatants in Belgium, the members of Action Directe and GARI in France, the First of May, anarchist and autonomous fighters and the members of MIL in Spain during the Franco’s regime, the Tupamaros fighters in Uruguay, Che Guevara, the members of the FARC in Colombia, the Fronte Farabundo Martí (FMLN) in El Salvador, Sendero Luminoso and Túpac Amaru (MRTA) in Peru, the fighters of revolutionary organizations in Turkey, the members of the PKK, IRA and ETA, and here in Greece the fighters of the 17^th November (17N) and ELA (Revolutionary Popular Struggle).

As for the charges: today in this court those who are committing crimes against the people, those who are committing the biggest social robbery in history should be in the dock and be ashamed.

They are the members of the PASOK government, prime minister Giorgios Papandreou, economy minister Evangelos Venizelos and his predecessor, former minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou, ministers Loverdos, Koutroumanis, Pangalos, Chrisochoidis, Papoutsis, Diamantopoulou, all the other ministers and under-secretaries, the members of political parties who make laws for looting the people, who cut on basic needs such as food, housing, jobs, health, education, dignity, those who deny people of their life, those who signed the middle-term plan and agreed with the recent Pact for Stability and Growth, thus humiliating people and turning them into subjects under the national and international economic aristocracy.

The current corrupted traitors of the Greek people are these ones – like Georgios Tsolakoglou and Ioannis Rallis in the past. The members of the previous government of Nea Dimokratia, ex prime minister K. Karamanlis, ex economy minister and economists G. Alogoskoufis, P. Doukas, G. Papathanasiou, ministers P. Panagiotopoulos, G. Voulgarakis, V. Polidoras, S. Tsitouridis, F. Palli-Petralia, all these men should sit in the dock and be ashamed.

All these men should apologize for robbing the people and the welfare funds, as in the case of so-called bills of exchange (structural installations), which some insurance companies bought and were therefore damaged; for robbing public resources, as in the case of exchange of public soil with the monastery of Vatopedi; for committing crime against people’s freedom, as in the case of the telephone tapping of hundreds of citizens in 2004–2005, ordered by the American embassy in Athens for the security of the Olympic games, and carried on for years, a case that resulted in the death – now they are calling it murder – of a Vodaphone worker; for the kidnapping and torture of Pachistani people in 2005, ordered by the British; for the torture on immigrants, like that in the police station of Ag. Pantaleimonas in 2005; for the privatisation of social security, medical assistance and hospitalization affecting hundreds of workers due to insurance reforms introduced by Petralia (work minister) in 2008; for assaulting psychologically demonstrators, as in the case of the students demo in 2007; for beating and murdering immigrants outside the police unit of the Asylum Department on Petrou Ralli road; for murdering Alexis Grigoropoulos.

You should sit in the dock and apologize, you professional judges, you the accomplices and servants of all these scoundrels and criminals, you patrons of the regime, armed guards of power, the para-state, the special forces units and traitors, the police and their special units, the unity for restauration of order, DELTA, DIAZ, the special guards protecting the rich, the leaders and the politicians, those who attack people on strike, those who kill young people, immigrants, fighters, those who torture inside police stations.

You are all members of a structural and extremely well organized criminal and terrorist organization whose name is state, and whose mission is to defend the interests of the rich..

Your mission is to defend the criminal regime called capitalism. All those you serve should be held accountable for robbing and looting the people, the people’s income, wages, pensions, public funds and social insurance.

Those you serve should be held accountable for those who do not have food and look for it in the rubbish, for those who are dying or whose life and health are put at risk for lack of medical assistance in hospitals and cuts to the national health service, for those who lose their lives during so-called ‘work accidents’, for those who lose their jobs and are condemned to poverty and misery, for those who lose their homes, for those who commit suicide because of their debts, while in the meantime these criminals live in luxury.

You are going to judge us on behalf of all these scoundrels and criminals, whom people want to see hanging in Syntagma square. This trial is a crime. Because your charges and imprisonment are criminal and anti-social acts.

Because you judges and public prosecutors are accomplices of a criminal regime that terrorize people and the majority of society every day.

Because our actions are necessary for the liberation of the people from the totalitarianism of capital and the state.

Because people are not terrorized by the actions of Revolutionary Struggle, on the contrary many people agree with the actions of the organization, since our revolt is against political and economic power, against the regime that oppresses and exploits them day by day.

Because terrorism is the theft and looting committed by the state, the government and the economic elite against the people. Terrorism is to condemn people to poverty and deprivation. Terrorism is the violence of henchmen cops against people who demonstrate. As revolutionaries and members of Revolutionary Struggle, we have no reason for making apologies. It is you and the members of the regime who have reasons for making apologies..

On the contrary, we can be proud of our participation to Revolutionary Struggle. We are proud because we are against injustice, exploitation and oppression. To hold arms in hand is always the right thing to do.

Armed revolt for the overthrowing of capitalism and the state is appropriate and necessary now more than ever.

We are here to declare that Social Revolution is the only justice that will defeat the criminal regime.

Nikos Maziotis