----- Original Message ----- From: Downwithcapitalism <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 7:48 PM Subject: [downwithcapitalism] FW: Anticommunist campaign in Poland Reuters. 25 April 2001 12:10 PM ET. Poland to Try Ex-Minister Over Miner Shootings. WARSAW A Polish court agreed Wednesday to reopen a trial against a communist-era interior minister over his role in the killing of striking miners under martial law in 1981. Czeslaw Kiszczak is scheduled to be retried on May 16, after the Warsaw provincial court rejected a defense motion not to prosecute the former general which cited the statute of limitations. In a separate case, Poland's last communist leader, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, is due to go on trial on May 15 charged with ordering the fatal shootings of 44 protesting shipyard workers as defense minister in 1970. Jaruzelski has escaped punishment for imposing martial law in 1981 to crush Solidarity, the former Soviet bloc's first free trade union, thanks to an act passed in 1996 by a parliament then dominated by parties rooted in the communist system. But the act did not protect Kiszczak. He is accused of issuing an order in the early stages of martial law that led police to shoot nine and wound 25 striking miners at two coal pits in southern Poland. Prosecutors argue Kiszczak sent a coded message that illegally allowed heads of police units to order the use of firearms against protesting workers. The 75-year-old Kiszczak, who is in poor health, denies any responsibility for the killings, the bloodiest episode during the two years of martial law. If convicted, he faces between two and 10 years in jail. Lawyers representing Kiszczak, who was absent from Wednesday's court hearing, put a brave face on Wednesday's ruling. "We are happy that the court is getting to the bottom of the matter," said counsel Grzegorz Majewski. No senior communist official in Poland, which peacefully shed communist rule in 1989, has been convicted of crimes committed under the old regime due to legal hurdles and the lack of popular pressure to prosecute them. [N.B.] A party of reformed communists, the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), is widely tipped to defeat the ruling Solidarity bloc in the general election due around September. Solidarity is rooted in the pre-1989 anti-communist opposition. The SLD urges Poles to forget the past and focus on efforts to join the European Union. Poland entered NATO in 1999. Opinion polls show most Poles believe General Jaruzelski's arguments that martial law averted the risk of Soviet invasion. Kiszczak was acquitted of the martial law charges in 1996, but an appeals court ordered the retrial. He was interior minister until 1990 and along with Jaruzelski took part in round-table talks that ended communist rule. <>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<> Warsaw Voice. April 29, 2001 No. 17 (653). The Left Looms Large. The test election in Nysa, organized by the Election Research Center, involved 10 parties and political groups and ended in outright victory for the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD). In a coalition with the Labor Union (UP), the SLD won over 46 percent of votes and almost totally defeated its rivals. The losing parties claim that Nysa is not indicative of Poland and that the real election will look quite different. If the outcome of the Nysa election were translated into parliamentary seats, the SLD/UP caucus would number 268 deputies. The Civic Platform (PO) would win 84 seats, Solidarity Election Action (AWS)-45, the National Party of Pensioners (KPEiR)-34 and the Samoobrona (Self-defense) farmers' trade union-27. The remaining two seats, in line with the election law, would be taken by representatives of the German minority. SLD/UP representatives did not hide their joy at such a decisive victory. SLD leaders, who arrived in Nysa in almost full force, tried to convince the electorate that only a left-wing party, sensitive to social problems, can lead Poland out of the structural crisis in which it found itself after four years of AWS rule. Sociologists, commenting in the Polish media on the results of the poll, have pointed to the astonishing performance of the pensioners' party and the radical Samoobrona farmers' union. In national public opinion surveys, the two groups have placed well below the 5-percent election threshold. The same is the case with the Union for Realpolitik (UPR). In Nysa, the percentage of votes won by the party was three times its popularity ratings in opinion polls. SPAM TO FOLLOW Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
