Defiant stand by strike leader against Soviets

Press, 22 October 1980, Page 8

Defiant stand by strike leader against Soviets

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw '‘Many times they threatened us in the past with rockets and tanks. We will not let ourselves be smashed in- the" face,” was how the Polish free trade union leader, Mr Lech Walesa, replied at- a workers’ rally, to a question about the threat of what was understood to be Soviet intervention in Poland.

S’Let them try,” Mr Walesa told 7000 workers in the southern industrial city of Katowice as he -bowed off the power of his nation-

wide Soli irity Trade Union Movement. His sl..te;.ient reflected a growing militancy in the Solidarity Movement. The militant mood among the leaders of Solidarity, which . eckon's-on a membership of more than six million workers, has been fuelled by anger over delays by the authorities in •egistering the movement. Mr Walesa, who has drawn capacity crowds during a tour of southern, I flland, has fought off a move by his co-leaders to call an immediate strike in protest against t’ e delays.

A meeting of the union’s national committee in the coal-mini.>g town of Jastrzebie, considered a proposal to call the strike during a heated session which was interrupted by Mr Walesa’s departure to address' a rally in Katowice.

When (he meeting resumed, delegates decided to postpone . their d ision on the strike until a meeting at the union’s headquarters in Gdansk next Monday. Mr Walesa has declared repeatedly on his tour he does not favour further strike action, but he has at I

the same time been equally insistent that his union will operate with. or without full legal recognition. Recognition of the Solidarity Movement in the Warsaw courts has been held up mainly because the union refused to include a clause in its statutes accepting the leading role of the Communist Party in Poland.

Mr Walesa said he v > not prepared to. rewrite the statutes to conform,with: the wishes of the Court and warned the authorities that his union existed whether or not they liked it.