End of bans sought

Press, 19 September 1986, Page 6

End of bans sought

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw

Poland’s President, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, has urged the West to lift all economic restrictions against his country now that political prisoners have been freed.

In a first public comment on the amnesty for 225 jailed political opponents, General Jaruzelski referred to compassion frequently voiced in the West for Poland’s wellbeing. “There is an opportunity to prove this. It lies in a just morality and elementary compensation in the form of normalising financial and trade relations which Polish society

has the right to demand and expect.” General Jaruzelski was addressing Communist Party activists in Zielona Gora. Poland says that United States-led economic sanctions imposed in retaliation for the suppression of the Solidarity free trade union in December, 1981, have cost it billions of dollars. Its debts to the West total more than SUS3O billion ($62.1 billion). General Jaruzelski denied that the decision to free political prisoners had been motivated by a desire to better relations with the -West.

He appealed to all Western critics, but the

United States in particular, to more realistically appraise Poland’s geopolitical position. General Jaruzelski also warned militants of Solidarity and other opposition supporters not to resume efforts to undermine Communist rule.

He indicated that , Government proponents of the amnesty had been obliged to surmount hardline opposition when he said: “The release was accepted with social approval but it was - not universal ... this should be considered by all those who learn too slowly and who think that the entire nation will be celebrating their release.”