S.U.P. head backed Polish crackdown

Press, 29 January 1982, Page 4

S.U.P. head backed Polish crackdown

PA „ Auckland The president of the Mos-cow-ailigned Socialist Unity Party, Mr G. H. Andersen, said yesterday that he had broadcast support for the Polish military . crackdown over Radio Moscow while he had visited Russia for nose surgery this month. Speaking on a Radio Pacific talk-back programme in Auckland, he said, “L quite clearly support the actions of the Polish authorities, quite clearly." Mr Andersen returned from the Soviet Union last week after three weeks in a Russian hospital. - r . Interviewed on,. Radio Pacific by Gordon; Dryden, he said that he had broadcast support for. the Polish crackdown over Radio Moscow in his capacity as the S.U.P. president, not as a national executive member of the Federation of Labour, nor as secretary of the Northern Drivers’ Union. “I expressed opinions on the class nature of the Polish authorities in instituting martial law and the class nature of Solidarity (the Polish free trade union), in particular its leadership.

He had said on Moscow

radio that the essence of the question in Poland was a case of “some ' grave mistakes” by the. Polish Communists, Government,' and trade unions.'

“In the process of rectification of those errors, antiSocialist elements took charge in Solidarity and did not adopt an attitude of correcting the points that needed attention. Their sole aim was to overthrow the Government with the use of force and, I believe, a return to a capitalist system.” Mr Andersen said in reply to questions that he had not visited Poland but that he had obtained his information from sources in the Soviet Union and from the World Federation of Trade Unions, an organisation which is said to be Communist-dominated. He rejected a suggestion that his visit to a Russian hospital for surgery had put him in'an elite class. “Here, I would have had the job done in about two days and at a private hospital. Over there, I was in hospital for three weeks because their attitude, towards medicine generally is that post-operative care is the

main feature, which under our system you don’t get. “I have got no criticism of the surgeons here for the anaesthetists and so on but it is a fact that the care over there is greater than this system can afford.” Mr Anderson said that the Soviet position was well known: as a “matter of course,” members of “similar parties” around the world were helped with any question of sickness and educational facilities.