Polish talks begin

Press, 18 November 1981, Page 9

Polish talks begin

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw Poland’s Communist Government and the independent Solidarity trade union today began talks which both sides hope will end 17 months of strikes and bitter feuding. The Government issued a statement on the eve of the talks reaffirming its good will but repeating a warning that its patience could not last forever. “The good will of the authorities and readiness for constructive co-operation cannot be indefinitely put to the test,” the Government said. ■ It referred to continuing labour unrest and to a snowballing. campus protest that threatens to close all universities. It said forces hostile to agreement appeared to be increasing. The Communists have launched a propaganda drive to persuade Poles of all shades to bury their differences and join together in a front of national accord. Today’s talks were preceded by high-level meetings

between Church, political, and union leaders in search of common ground for such a front. Solidarity has sent six negotiating teams to today’s talks. “Both sides. will have to establish what they are going to discuss and how,” a Solidarity spokesman, Marek Brunne, said yesterday. The union negotiators want discussions on all main issues affecting Poland, including demands for free local elections, access to the mass media, and economic reform. The question of free local elections is likely to emerge quickly as the most controversial because the political shape of a national front would hinge on how it is resolved. Solidarity is committed to demanding open democratic elections to replace the local councils whose mandate expires in February.' But such free polls could expose the Communists to an embarrassing defeat and

thus undermine the constitution which upholds the principle of Communist supremacy. Some Communists ■ have said that they want to make the front a real institution but how far they are prepared to go in devolving power remains unknown. Earlier, thousands . of students went on strike at seven Polish universities and technical schools. The national Independent Students’ Association said that about 30,000 students had boycotted classes or staged sit-ins at institutions of higher education in Warsaw. Wroclaw and Tzeszow. The association has called for all university-level schools to go on strike by November 24 to press for a new higher education law and to demonstrate support for protesting colleagues at the P adorn Engineering School, where students have staged a 22-day sit-in strike over the disputed election of the school rector.