Ration report ‘premature’

Press, 16 April 1981, Page 9

Ration report ‘premature’

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw The official Polish news agency, Pap, said yesterday that food rationing in Poland would be extended on May 1 to include butter, cereals, and flour, but later withdrew the report, saying it was published prematurely. The agency’s editor on duty, contacted by telephone, could not give any reason for the withdrawal but said the Council of Ministers had not made any binding decision on the subject. Warsaw Radio, monitored in London, said the Prime Minister (General Wojciech Jaruzelski) issued an,order at Monday's Cabinet meeting relating to extended food rationing and quoted a Government statement as saying that work was continuing on the matter.

Pap also reported that Communist worker activists had called on the party leader,. Stanislaw Kania, to speed up ■-the - purge of ‘ unworthy” party members. In an economic report, Pap said that Poland's ex-

ports fell sharply in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period of 1980 and its balance of payments problem remained serious.

Poland’s main noh-Com-munist creditor nations are due to meet later this monthto conclude a rescheduling agreement. An influential Soviet weekly accused the West, including President Reagan, of trying to use the granting of credits to Poland as a lever to interfere in its internal affairs and prevent a crackdown on “counter-revo-lution.”

The magazine, “Literaturnaya Gazeta ,” organ of the Writers’ Union, said that the “internal counter-revolution” in Poland owed much of its strength to backers outside the country. In Washington, the State Department said on Tuesday that Warsaw Pact military activity in and . around Poland had decreased significantly, but “distorted and contentious” Soviet commentary on\ the Polish situation had continued.