Jaruzelski Govt goes direct to Polish people

Press, 7 September 1982, Page 8

Jaruzelski Govt goes direct to Polish people

NZPA Warsaw A week of demonstrations, anger, death and recrimination has left Poland's military rulers committed to a tough new line against political opposition. The Communist authorities emerged from the wave of fierce street clashes, in which at least four people died, with a new mood of resolution after nearly nine months of martial law and virtual political stalemate.

They dropped any possibility of a dialogue on the Polish crisis with leaders of the suspended Solidarity union, and arrested dissidents who worked with Solidarity on charges of trying to overthrow the State by force.

The demonstrations and subsequent street battles which affected 54 towns and cities in 34 of Poland’s 49 provinces unfolded predictably. The police mustered huge forces at squares to which underground leaflets had called people to demonstrate their support for Solidarity on the second anniversary of its birth. Their tactics were to keep people on the move, to prevent those who defied the show of strenght from coalescing into a challenging crowd or march. The tactic succeeded only partially. In Warsaw the crowds of workers and Solidarity supporters who gathered at prearranged spots in the afternoon were quickly scattered by tear-gas and water-can-non, but they regrouped elsewhere and 'running battles continued into the night. In other places the story was similar, but often far more serious. .

The trial of destruction was more dramatic in Wroclaw, where one died and six were wounded after the police opened fire, and in the nearby copper-mining city of Lubin, where two workers died and 14 were wounded when police officers shot at the crowd.

Investigations have opened into the killings.. The official news agency, Pap, .has

denied that the police in Wroclaw had shot directly at demonstrators.

A Government spokesman, Jerzy Urban said that the decision to abandon hope of talks with the interned Solidarity leaders and bring charges against the K.O.R. figures had resulted from "a political judgment of the present situation.” This judgment was that political opponents of the socialist State stood behind the demonstrations.

Mr Urban said that the Government had decided to address itself directly to Solidarity members, who numbered nearly 10 million, and bypass the union leaders because they had proved they were not viable partners for discussion.

Solidarity leaders, from Lech Walesa downwards, have been left in limbo since the take-over, with their union, and thus their formal elected positions, only suspended. There have been no talks between the unionists and the Government, according to Government officials and underground Solidarity sources.

Mr Urban declined to answer directly a question on whether the Government was now taking steps to ban the union completely, which underground leaders in Warsaw said could follow if last week’s demonstrations failed to show it still had huge support. Each side will draw its conclusions from the demonstrations, but there can be no doubt they unleashed a wave of pent-up anger in what the authorities say was more than 65,000 people who faced a huge armed police presence to make their point. Mr Urban and other leaders said that the Government would pursue its policy of seeking national accord with all those parties prepared to accept basic conditions. These are that the leading role of the Communist Party and Poland’s alliances with its socialist neighbours be respected. . His declaration that the Communist Government

would address itself directly to workers recalled an old ideological problem for the country's rulers during the Solidarity period. The problem was: how could they accept negotiations with leaders ol the free trade union claiming to represent the interests of the workers when the party itself was formally the polictical mouthpiece of workers? Its full title is the Polish United Workers' Party. The authorities have already ruled out any restoration of Solidarity in the form it developed before December when it provided a dangerous political challenge to the weakened Communist Party.

The events of the last week confirmed this decision and underlined the authorities’ resolve not to be buffeted from their political course by such eruptions of anger. This course is based on working for national reconciliation under an umbrella organisation called the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth.

It has provoked little interest in the people so far, being essentially a coalition of political forces which are already working closely with the Communist rulers. The Government is struggling to implement a farreaching economic reform programme which was started last year with the aim of making industry more self-sufficient by more efficient planning, incentives for workers and, if necessary, unemployment. Putting the programme into effect, is held up by a lack of spare parts and materials from the West because of a stop on new hard currency credits and by resistance to change within the system.

The Government says that such plans, can be effected only with the support of the workers and the rest of society. After last week’s events the Government must assess just how much real support it can claim.