'Let's not get used to state assassinations'
One year after the country's most lucrative rail accident, Elianna Manika speaks to Ef. Sin. For the tragic moments he lived as a passenger of the Hellenic Train train and how he managed to get rid of the fourth wagon. He argues that the state has only been dealing with the concealment of crime and estimates that the real culprits are in the restless.
The 29 -year -old philologist, who lives in Thessaloniki, asks to fight to conquer a life that we will not think about whether we manage to get home from our work and not sacrifice to the altar of "development".
Ilianna Manika, I survived from the Railway in Tempi
● What is the first picture that comes to your mind since the night of February 28th 2023?
The absolute chaos. A patchwork of horrible traumatic images.
● Could you describe what you lived for?
I was on the train from Athens for Thessaloniki with a friend of mine and a friend of mine. We were in the front positions of the fourth wagon, I with my girlfriend were sitting together and our friend three places back. At about 23.20, we felt a strong jerk, which lasted several seconds, in which objects were dropped on us, glasses from the windows that broke and material from the wagon that was dissolved, as the commercial train had fallen from the left on our wagon on our wagon . I remember that when the jerk stopped, the wagon had tilted quite a bit. After a while the lights went out. We managed to get out because our friend took the hammer and broke the window that was on the side of the wagon. We managed with the hammer first and then with suitcases to break the glass and jump off the train. We were injured at the time of the conflict, but also in our attempt to get rid of it.
● What did they see when you managed to get rid of it?
As soon as we jumped out of the window we headed to the field. We stayed on the spot with other injured for about two hours, during which we had not yet realized what had happened and whether we would be able to come out alive. I remember the cries, the train burning, the other injured around me, the wreckage of wagon. Some blurry images. I remember that in order to get rid of it we had to help us rescuers climb over the commercial train and then with ropes to reach the road. There we were given first aid, and then we were taken to the "Gennimatas" Hospital in Thessaloniki.
● In the first critical hours and the following days who did you have on your side? What is the state's support for you since then?
I had my own people next to me, but also those who were demonstrating this state crime, those who did not exit against this mass murder. The state was involved in the scene, with the concealment of crime. He didn't deal with us. The victims are not interested in the state, only their profits. And when on the altar of their profits she is murdered, she is interested in how much we will cost her if we cost her. We have nothing to expect from those who knew that they were sending us to premeditated crime. For so many years, OSE employees Katogella had the lack of security measures and the mobilizations and strikes that have found the indifference and derision of the executives and the media that served them. After all, we must not miss that the OSE was aware of the state and sold in foreign interests, with the Greek State by the European Union's instructions forced to take on the costs, but also to reduce it: to dismiss staff, to delegate contractors. Thus, they leave the functions that have to do with our safety. Thus, they show us that they are not interested in how much we will survive, as long as they fill their pockets.
● Have you contacted relatives of victims or other survivors?
Yes. Mostly I have contact with the president of the Association of victims of affected Tempi, Maria Karystianou, whom I deeply appreciate, admire her power and all the efforts she makes to avoid this crime and to win the right.
● Have the Public Prosecutor's Office invite you to deposit what you have experienced?
No, no one has called us.
● A year later, do you think justice will be rendered?
I do not believe in civil justice, because in all cases they load responsibilities for workers or victims themselves. The real culprits are in the process and as we follow the discussions in the House Inquiry Committee, an attempt is made to blame the responsibilities of the station and the dead drivers who went to work and never returned home. In the same work spectators. In all the murders of the system: the drowning refugees, the workers who are killed every two days, the murders of the police, my passengers who were murdered because they dared to enter the train, the individual responsibility, the human error and the " " Their righteousness serves the policy of the powerful, which impoverish us, deprives us of our own rights, to our own lives. But I believe in the right. That is why I will not choose the fatal stance and will not accept this gloomy situation. I will participate in the struggle to give righteousness, because, although they have taken it on their side, we will take advantage of our power against corruption to impose the real right.
● Have you re -trained by train since then?
Of course not. The train has been painted with the blood of the victims, with the damaged dreams of young people who died so unjustly and with the nightmares of those we were there and experiencing this horror. The word "train" is now intertwined with death. I am learning that they are now getting coffee in the train, that they have upgraded their website, they have changed the numbers of positions. For passenger safety they have done nothing of course. Another example of their mockery and the devaluation of our intelligence.
● What would you say to the Prime Minister of the country if you had him?
Nothing! I have nothing to say to the Prime Minister, Karamanlis or anyone else of the current government and all the previous ones. I don't wonder how they sleep quietly in the evenings. They sleep fine because they do their job very well. They serve their class by putting profits over our lives. I don't think we have something to win by talking to those who are against us. But I want to say something to all the people around me who happened not to be on the train that night, but we live together in this system that imposes death on us daily on all its manifestations. That this system of exploitation, violence, terrorism and overt murder is based on our fear of surviving. But in order to survive in it, we must unite against the individualism cultivated and through our solidarity and collective struggle to question this bloody "reality". Not to get used to their murders. To claim our right, because nothing is given to us. To fight to conquer a life that we will not think about whether we are able to survive, return home from our work, from our university or from our movement. A life that we will not sacrifice to the altar of their "development". A life in which every life will have value.