Polish farmers challenge newly elected P.M.

Press, 13 February 1981, Page 6

Polish farmers challenge newly elected P.M.

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw Poland’s newly elected sol-dier-Prime Minister, facing a strike threat by farmers, was expected today to outline fresh and more forceful ways of tackling the country’s seven-month-old labour crisis. Cabinet changes were also likely to be announced by General Wojciech Jaruzelski, aged 57, when he makes his first formal speech to the Warsaw Parliament. The Army general, trained in the Soviet Union and still retaining his post as Polish Defence Minister, immediately ran into a challenge from private farmers who threatened to strike in protest over a Supreme Court ruling against their right to form a free trade union. The Communist _ Party leader, Stanislaw Kania, who proposed the new Prime Minister at yesterday’s meeting of the Sejm (Parliament), said that strong and energetic Government was needed to cope with Poland’s economic problems and growing anarchy. “With threatening dark clouds gathering over Poland, Wojciech Jaruzelski seems the best statesman to whom the reins of Govem-

ment could be entrusted,” Mr Kania said. General Jaruzelski, wearing his beribboned uniform, was seen by millions of Polish television viewers as Mr Kania praised him for “unshaken patriotism, high sense of national dignity, moral integrity, and • organisational ability.’’ As the party leader spoke, fanners were preparing to confer with leaders of the independent Solidarity movement in Gdansk to consider what action they should take to press for their own free union. . Farmers’ delegates at their headquarters in the gouthern city of Rzsezow threatened strikes if their own self-pro-claimed Rural Solidarity union failed to be given official status. “We farmers are prepared for anything and will use every available means and every form of strike to have the already existing Rural Solidarity accepted by the Government,” their statement said. And it added: “the month of March is drawing near and if fields are to be sown, this matter must be resolved as soon as possible.” Another statement issued later by Warsaw’s Rural

Solidarity office said the union would continue to function despite the lack of legal recognition. This was in open defiance of a ruling by the Justice Ministry, last Tuesday that further organisational activities by Rural Solidarity were illegal. The representatives of. 3.5 million private farmers were openly supported by Polish Roman Catholic leaders. In Wahhington, United States officials said the Polish crisis could deepen seriously if the country’s farmers pressed for their own trade union with the support of Catholic Church leaders. In Rome, Pope John Paul yesterday called on all sides in Poland to display calmness, maturity and a sense of responsibility. Soviet newspapers, meanwhile, accused the United States of trying to worsen the Polish situation. They have also urged authorities in Warsaw to crack down on Solidarity, described, as a subversive organisation directed from the West. The Soviet Embassy in Washington yesterday made public a letter from the

Soviet Foreign Minister (Mr Andrei Gromyko) to the Secretary of State (Mr Alexander Haig) which accuses the United States of “open interference” in Polish internal affairs. ' The letter, dated January 28, charges the Voice of America and other United States foreign radio operations with “provocative and instigatory” broadcasts aimed at generating “unfriendly sentiments” among Poles toward the Soviet Union. Student strikes were reported to be continuing in Lodz and at least three other cities — Warsaw Poznan, and Bielsko-Biala — despite indications that some headway was made in' talks with government officials on a wide range of demands. The demands included the election of university officials by students and professors. The national television reported last night that (Student headquarters in Lodz, where four academic institutions were at a standstill, had called on other universities to delay any sympathy action until tomorrow “in view of the country’s difficult situation.”