Walesa target of mysterious muck-raking

Press, 27 November 1982, Page 8

Walesa target of mysterious muck-raking

NZPA WarsawFree less than two weeks from interment under martial law, Lech Walesa has become the target of a smear campaign aimed at blackening his image in the eyes of Poles and the Church. An underground newspaper claiming to be the organ of the Solidarity regional organisation of Gorzow Wielkopolski, western Poland, has a cartoon showing Mr Walesa in Zomo (riot police) uniform running with truncheon raised after underground leaders of the banned independent trade union. Another cartoon shows Mr Walesa kneeling on a prayer stool and pocketing a large wad of banknotes. Solidarity sympathisers are convinced that the newsSr is a forgery, but ial circles insist that there is no need to be surprised if Solidarity "extremists” feel that way about

Mr Walesa. Some officials make no secret of their ill-will toward him. A Politburo member, Albin Siwak, is quoted in the weekly, “Polityka” as saying, that Mr Walesa could .deposit his “fortune” of “about $1 million” in the Vatican bank and "live off the interest.” / Another example is' the affair of the “pornographic” photographs of Mr Walesa said by the American television network, N.B.C. to have been sent to the Episcopate. There are also said to be tapes of coarse comments made by Mr Walesa during the internment about the Polish Primate, Archbishop Jozef Glemp. The Polish press has said nothing about the alleged tapes, but one daily has carried a report on the photographs and used them as an excuse to lecture Western reporters on morality.

So far. the attacks on Mr Walesa seem to- have, made little impact on the public and could even be counter-, productivefurious passengers of a / .Warsaw . bus shredded a caricature pasted on one of the bus windows showing Mr Walesa dressed as a Zomo. ■- Underground ■ upionists,' even if some are worried about the “risk”; Mr Walesa took in allowing himself to be freed before the other interned Solidarity leaders, appear anxious to preserve Mr Walesa’s old image. The 1 underground Warsaw weekly, “Tygodnik Mazowse,” which made a strong defence of Mr Walesa after his liberation has confirmed its attitude in its latest issue. A member of Solidarity provisional commission; Wladyslaw Hardek, describes Mr Walesa’s liberation as “a victory” adding that. “The compromise Lech speaks of is necessary.”

The attitude of the Church is. as usual, more complex, last;. week-end Archbishop Glemp had a two-hour meeting-', with. Mr Walesa, who emerged from the encounter carrying a bunch of flowers. But- there is a curious reluctance among those close to Archbishop Glemp to issue a categorical rebuttal of the porn-and-tapes affair. Some have always been mistrustful of Mr Walesa, whose rough-and-ready ways violate the rules of the political game they are accustomed to playing. " This does not mean that relations between Mr Walesa and the hierarchy are likely to grow tense. But it might confirm that he has never been a tool in the hands of the Church. . . Another aspect of the affair is that if Mr Walesa is being subjected to such attacks, it is because, despite his silence, he represents a danger.