Regime gets tough as toll climbs to 3

Press, 3 September 1982, Page 6

Regime gets tough as toll climbs to 3

NZPA Warsaw Citing the "tragic consequences” of unrest, officials yesterday said, .that the police had shot and killed two Solidarity supporters during protests in south-west Poland, and had arrested 4050 around the country in the biggest outbreak of violence since the start of martial law. Official reports said that the disturbances had. been widespread and 67 civilians and 103 police officers hurt, including 41 officers who had required hospital treatment. Polish officials put crowds at between 65,000 to 75,000. A Government spokesman said that the authorities in Gdansk had discovered the body of a 22-year-old man with head injuries “in the area of disturbances” and had launched an investigation. Danuta Walesa, wife of the interned Solidarity chief, Lech Walesa, told reporters that her husband opposed street rioting but felt that workers should greet the authorities with what she called “appropriate measures.” The fatalities in Lublin, south-west Poland, were the first to be reported since 11 people ; died as a result of clashes in the early days of martial law last December. An official communique from the military prosecutor’s office published on the front page of afternoon papers and read over television said that the authori-

ties were investigating the cause of the riots that had left 11 police officers and one reserve officer injured;

There was no word from Lublin on the situation, or the extent of injuries to the 12, three of them described as “seriously” wounded in the official communique Lublin, a copper-mining town of 67,000 people, was relatively quiet after martial law was declared on December 13, but in mid-February a bomb was found at a local filling station. The city is 22km north of Legnica, headquarters of Soviet troops garrisoned in Poland. The authorities had slapped a tough, 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew for people qged 18 and under onto the city, restricting, adults to their homes from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., official sources in Warsaw said. Curfew has also been imposed on Wroclaw and four towns in Walbrzych Province.

In Warsaw, where tear-gas clouds still drew tears from people at St Ann's Church, near where disturbances began, people placed a cross of spent tear-gas canisters, a red banner with a black mourning stripe, and a piece of paper to the “Heroes of Lublin.”

Alongside the memorial, which also said, “To the memory of those killed in Lublin, August 31” were nine pieces of coal, commemorating nine miners killed at the Wujek mine in Silesia during clashes in December.

Western. diplomatic sources said that Polish officials had told them that between 65,000 and 75,000 people had joined protests across the nation, and that 136 police officers were hurt, 45 requiring hospital treatment. No figures on civilian casualties were available. But the Polish news agency, Pap, said that the police had detained 589 people in Warsaw, 645 in Wroclaw, 201 in Szczecin and 120 in Gorzow Wielkopolski, where people overturned cars and attacked police officers with stones and bottles. Figures for other cities were hot given. The ruling military council condemned the disturbances, saying that they had put in jeopardy tentative plans to lift martial law by the end of the year.

The council, the supreme ruling body, also indicated that a new crackdown would begin.