Polish regime creates new set of enemies

Press, 7 April 1982, Page 17

Polish regime creates new set of enemies

By

FELIKS POLONSKI

in Warsaw

One day early last month a large white. Mercedes pulled up outside the court-

room in Bydgoszcz, where 12 strikers from the Adolf Warski shipyard in Szczecin were on trial. Most of those ins court took little notice, assuming the new arrival was just another dignitary from the Polish Communist Party, come to see military justice done. There was astonishment as out stepped the Primate of Poland, Archbishop Glemp, with a small entourage. He swept into the courtroom, halting proceedings as everybody, including the militia, rose to their feet in surprise and respect. Glemp stayed only briefly — but long enough to bless the defendants with a large sweeping gesture. The accused mostly broke down at this open demonstration of the backing of the Church, by far the most determined and symbolic gesture the Primate had made. Since then, Glemp has significantly toughened his stand against the military authorities in Poland.

At a meeting on the outskirts of Warsaw, attended by 20,000 people — the biggest meeting held since martial law was imposed — he called for the release of Lech Walesa, the imprisoned leader of the Solidarity trade union.

Walesa remains in internment, together with another 4000 or so activists. Evidence seeping out of the internment camps suggests that conditions have got worse in the past month.

At the women’s detention centre at Goldap, in the furthest north eastern corner of Poland, all indications point to poor food and shelter, and perhaps worst of all, tremendous inaccessibility. Visits in all internee centres are limited to once a month, and then only for a brief time.

In Strzelce-Opolskie detention camp, the writer, Lothar-Herbst, is known to be very ill, and like many other internees is sharing a cell with common criminals. The literary critic and leading Solidarity adviser, Jan Jozef Lipski, who with writer Wiktor Woroszylski organised a strike in the Warsaw

Urus tractor plant during the first week of the “war," is seriously ill with heart and rheumatism trouble.

Lipski was put on trial in Januarj’, but proceedings were suspended because of illness. He is now in jail in the Mokotow district of Warsaw, wnere the prison doctor, Wronski, has declared him fit to stand trial. Before martial law was declared Wronski had stated that an ordinary criminal, also suffering from ill health, was fit to stand trial — and the criminal died during the proceedings. Lipski's lawyer, another Solidarity adviser, Jan Olszewski, has stated that a neutral panel of doctors consider Lipski too ill to be tried, but Wronski has refused to allow the writer to be placed in a prison hospital. Instead. Lipski is now in a cell with ordinary criminals.

■ Two leading opponents of the regime. Bronislaw Geremek and Adam Michnik, are also in need of treatment. Michnik is suffering from a stomach complaint. The martial law authorities are now putting the squeeze on the country’s judiciary. More than 900 judges of 4000 became members of Solidarity before the military takeover last December. They are now threatened with dismissal.

Polish judges and prosecutors are theoretically independent, though both are appointed by the State through the Council of State, headed by President Henryk Jablonski. The removal of the judges dr prosecutors can only be done at the behest of the Council after a recommendation from the Minister of Justice.

The Solidarity judges were mainly active in pressing for reform of the legal system, especially the way in which chief judges and'prosecutors were appointed, and in seeking extensive improvements in prison conditions. Considerable pressure has already been placed on judges to leave Solidarity, and only 200 now remain in the Union. They have all been told that Solidarity

membership is incompatible with objectivity in the courtroom. Similar pressure is now being brought to bear on State prosecutors. In one city a prosecutor was interned immediately after the introduction of martial law, and remains in jail to this day. His colleagues composed a letter guaranteeing that, were he freed, they would make sure he committed no “anti-State activities.”

They took their plea to their Chief Prosecutor, who flew into a rage and threatened to have them all fired the next day, since the composition of such letters was itself an anti-State activity.

In the same court, the leading Solidarity activists voluntarily resigned from the Union in the first week of martial law, yet nevertheless were thrown but of their jobs a few days later. In other cities, the pattern is repeated with minor exceptions. What will happen to the sacked prosecutors and judges? If they are lucky and live in large cities, alternative work as lawyers or legal advisers will be found eventually. But for those in small cities where jobs are scarcer there is little chance of pursuing a career for which they are trained.

What the regime consistently fails to grasp, however, is that this systematic and crude dismissal of civil servants who were already dissatisfied is unlikely to “reeducate” them as to their “proper” social responsiblities. There has already been a purge of other civil servants, including bank employees, administration personnel, and all categories of local government posts in all big cities. Alongside the overwhelming mass of alienated workers and deeply-sus-picious private farmers, the regime is busily creating a stratum of bitter middleclass intelligentsia, who are being forced to adopt a political radicalism they would never have otherwise considered. — Copyright, London Observer Service.