Jailed Poles await outcome of Moscow talks

Press, 11 May 1984, Page 13

Jailed Poles await outcome of Moscow talks

From

NEAL ASCHERSON,

in Warsaw

When General Jaruzelski arrived in Moscow last week-end, he had a lot to talk about. The Polish Government can, if it wishes and if the Soviet leaders approve, bring about a series of deals with the internal opposition and the Catholic Church which would go a long way to relieve the international pressure on Poland.

Unless there is major internal trouble, the Government looks set to release about 400 political prisoners before July 22, which is the 40th anniversary of the present Polish State. The main problem is the “Eleven” — the seven Solidarity leaders and four leaders of the Committee for Worker’s Defence who have been imprisoned without trial for more than two years.

Their fate has been a major obstacle to normalising relations with the West.

The last days before General Jeruzelski left were full of shadowy moves and rumours: Lech Walesa had had talks in Warsaw, the “Eleven” had been taken from prison to meet officials and discuss their future; Archbishop Bronislaw Dabrowski, secretary of the episcopate, was involved.

The “Eleven” have refused to accept the offer of liberty if they go abroad. Among versions of what could now happen, the most plausible is that they will be briefly put

on trial and then released on the grounds that they have been in prison long enough to qualify for parole. The Government probably wants them to sign some promise to abstain from political activity: if they reject it, the alternative of “good behaviour” or rearrest will probably be imposed on them anyway.

The second devious set of negotiations concerns talks on a new law defining the rights of Church and State. Cardinal Glemp, the Primate, is reported to be confident that an agreement is

almost complete. Noises from the Government suggest that much more work needs to be done.

The agreement is, in turn, linked to an even more important Government aim: the establishment of full diplomatic relations between Warsaw and the Vatican.

Many Poles regard these deals with scepticism. They point out that the struggle between the police and the underground will

continue to refill the prisons even after any spectacular amnesties or acts of clemency. And many churchmen consider that a ChurchState agreement would inevitably fall to pieces under the enormous political pressures. Radical Catholics and those active in opposition consider both compromises as window-dressing for international consumption. “This is an ideological conflict of historic significance,” one said. “It

cannot be ended by a mere armistice.”

Thus the signing of an agreement might be seen as merely another sign that Cardinal Glemp is too soft and conciliatory, and increase divisions within the Catholic Church in Poland. Some sources claim that the agreement would only be part of a wider secret deal between the papacy and the Kremlin — a precondition for allowing the Catholic Church greater freedom in the Soviet Union and possibly the establishment of a new bishopric at Winnitza in the Ukraine.

Even if this is true, it might not impress the Polish Church. “I’m sorry for the Soviet leaders,” a Polish bishop joked. “They don’t have a Catholic Church strong enough to rescue them if they are overthrown.”

Behind this haze of speculation and symbolic politics, the situation inside Poland remains one of uneasy deadlock between a sullen and disaffected population and a regime increasingly losing confidence in the economic and political reforms to which it is committed.

The group of non-Communist citizens which offered conditional

support to General Jaruzelski is now pessimistic. “This system is unreformable,” one senior figure told me. “It will stand or fall as it is.”—Copyright, London Observer Service.

Footnote: Reuter reported from Moscow this week that Poland and the Soviet Union had agreed on a long-term pact to pull their economies closer together to help to reduce dependence on the West. The 15-year agreement on economic, scientific, and technological co-operation was signed in Moscow by General Jaruzelski and President Konstantin Chernenko.

Western diplomats, assessing the text published in the Communist Party daily “Pravda,” said they were struck by the extent of the planned co-operation.