General happy with his Poland

Press, 19 December 1986, Page 21

General happy with his Poland

From

DONALD FORBES,

Reuter, in Warsaw

Five years after crushing the Solidarity free trade union under martial law, Poland’s Communist leader, Wojciech Jaruzelski, says that he presides over a nation which has undergone a political transformation. “The Poland you are visiting now is a different country than it was at the turn of 1981 and 1982,” General Jaruzelski assured visiting foreign journalists this month. “In spite of our mistakes and weaknesses, socialism has been deeply rooted in our society and this is what we mean when we speak of the irreversible character of the changes which have taken place over the last five years.” The Government’s claim is to have turned martial law, declared on December 13, 1981, into a break not only with the tumultuous Solidarity experiment, but also with the notorious corruptions of communist rule

which helped to ignite the labour revolt. “When Jaruzelski talks about irreversible change, he means a qualitative change in the substance of political life,” an informed source said. The claim would be contested by many Solidarity supporters who suspiciously regard his initiatives, aimed at creating at least the impression of more open government, as being largely window-dressing. The former leaders of the banned union, including its chairman, Lech Walesa, have been rigorously excluded from Jaruzelski’s carefully controlled national reconciliation programme. There have been, however, multiplying signals that Jaruzelski is sincere in wishing to give Poles a freedom of expresion which, although limited, would be envied elsewhere in east Europe.

The sudden and unexpected release of all political prisoners in September rid him of a major obstacle to better relations with the West and the powerful Roman Catholic Church. Prime Minister Zbigniew Messner was forced to make a humiliating public apology to parliament last month after trying to slip amendments to the Government’s economic reforms past legislators without proper consultation. Political sources blamed Messner’s political inexperience for the mishap but added that such a rebuff to the Government, openly reported in the official press, would have been inconceivable before the Solidarity upheaval. Jaruzelski this month created a Consultative Council including

distinguished lay Catholics and independent intellectuals to advise him directly on social and political issues. He described the initiative, which gives non-com-munists a unique platform in a Soviet-bloc State, as a “bold experiment without precedent.” The Government is also moving towards the creation of the office of an ombudsman to whom Poles will be able to. take their grievances against a bureaucracy which is inefficient and frequently arbitrary in its application of the law. Where there is no compromise is in Jaruzelski’s reassertion of the primacy of the Communist Party, whose authority was brought close to collapse by Solidarity’s challenge. The ruling Politburo, in defining its hopes for the Consultative Council, stressed that while non-commun-ists were welcome, all members should adhere to the constitution

which guarantees Communist rule. In spite of Jaruzelski’s professed desire to broaden the field of public dialogue and national unity, manifest contradictions still exist. © The economic reform programme, intended to revitalise the economy, has not managed to alter the fact that 80 per cent of managers are Party members chosen for their political rather than professional credentials. 0 The economy, plagued by a foreign debt of more than $6O billion, sluggish productivity, and intractable inflation, represents a long-term threat to the Government’s efforts to achieve social stability. © The Government’s improved image in the West has not been translated into the infusion of fresh hard currency credits which the economy desperately needs.