Amsterdam-based daily newspaper Parool thought it was necessary to open the front page with huge letters on Friday and Saturday, stressing concern about the authorities doing nothing to stop this ‘terrorist youth from ETA’ meaning the 9 boys and girls from SEGI. Daily newspaper Trouw also expressed concern with huge letters, quoting a spokesman from the European Council that ‘the Dutch weren’t doing enough to combat terrorism’.

Overall the quality of the press-articles was very bad; no journalist asked himself how SEGI was put on the ‘black list’ of the European Union. The correspondent of the political tv- program NOVA in Madrid had to tell that the Spanish authorities at one time decided that the street violence (the so- called ‘Kale Borokka’ of which SEGI is often connected with) is a terrorist act. That should raise questions of how Madrid is dealing with political opponents? SEGI is never outlawed after a trial, evidence has never been presented, SEGI was never able to defend herself against the acquisitions, never has been proven that SEGI should ‘recruit youngsters for ETA’, SEGI is also not able to defend herself against her place on the EU-list for terrorist organisations.

No, the Dutch press didn’t manage to even try to look for answers on this question. Also in their talks with representatives from the Basque Information Centre (BIC) and people from SEGI their focus was mainly the not ‘distancing from the violence of ETA from a principal point of view’. Well, one more time then: the principal not to distance from violence doesn’t mean that you approve with violence, or that you do use it yourself or that you intend to use it. It means that you won’t agree with people who demand you to distance it, but at the same time let the violence exist. The people who do not protest against torture, political prosecution, isolation-detention etc. Why should SEGI join these ranks? And is not a criminal offence, it is just an opinion. SEGI wants a political solution of the political conflict in the Basque Country and works on that with political means such as demonstrations, spreading information, manifestations, campaigns, awakening, and practical actions such as squatting, occupations against exploiters in factories, actions against drug dealers. And all of this with the political idea of an independent and socialist Basque state on the background. If the Basque people would get the right to execute the right of self determination, the youth of SEGI will be the left spectrum of the political landscape of the ‘new’ (without Guardia Civil, without the Spanish army, without mandates from Madrid, without overruling laws from Madrid, the right to decide your own future) Basque Country.

The tone in the Dutch press was most of the time very cynical, with some positive exceptions, especially in the region press, something that the more ‘experienced’ reporters can blame themselves. But one of them made his excuses against us for his article, the editor cut severely in his article, making it even worse. Censorship and political help, apparently it still exists in the Netherlands.

That youth are organizing themselves so massively as SEGI does, the hardly political involved Dutchman won’t get it. That the youth of SEGI fight for independence, they think it is ‘an old- fashioned myth’ in the unified Europe. No, we shouldn’t let these ‘terrorists’ make their point, and soon the media found Camiel Eurlings, the rightwinger from the governing Christian Democrats CDA, who boosted in his cell-phone from his holiday-adress in Italy some explicit lyrics, but hasn’t seemed to manage to formulate some parliamentary questions about this ‘big affair’. Also the chairman of the local brach of the right liberals VVD from Amsterdam, Frits Huffnagel, you can always ask for some tough language against the ‘radical left’. Huffnagel explained on national television that if it was not justifiable that SEGI was on the EU-‘black list’, that they should be removed. We are looking forward to the conclusions of the investigation of Frits.

Three journalists were seriously thinking that ETA killed a Dutch tourist two weeks ago. And on television NOVA thought it was necessary to accompany the images of Basque demonstrators who were beaten up and shot at by the Basque police, with a voice-over ‘that it was not the first time that a demonstration of ‘Basques’ ended in rioting’. It is just what kind of atmosphere you want to have in your footage…

And the last irritating mistake they almost all kept making was the misspelling of the name of the Basque political prisoner Alexander Akarregi in the Netherlands. They wrote ‘Carregui’ and they just took it from the Spanish press, who don’t seem to recognize Basque names.

And finally, the declaration of the delegation of SEGI;

Declaration of SEGI by her visit to the Netherlands

SEGI is an autonomous group who wants to execute her democratic rights as the right to vote, the right to speak the language they want and the right to organise themselves. These rights are blocked by the Spanish and Basque juridical system. In the Basque Country is a political conflict that has to be solved with political means, such as dialogue.

SEGI was established with the following objectives: Independence, Socialism and Internationalism. SEGI is active on all areas the Basque youth has to deal with and travels through Europe to see how the youth in other parts of Europe is organizing.

SEGI will never accept the banning of their organisation. SEGI will never accept the placing of their organisation on the ‘EU- terrorlist’.

SEGI wants to thank everybody in the Netherlands who would listen to their story, discussed with them and shared their experiences on squatting, feminism, anarchism and solidarity in the Netherlands with them. SEGI hopes to see them in the future at one of the projects of SEGI in the Basque Country!

Delegation SEGI in the Netherlands 2nd, 3rd and 4th of August.

Basque Information Centre, 13th of August 2003