Solidarity challenge to Polish authorities

Press, 13 September 1988, Page 8

Solidarity challenge to Polish authorities

NZPA-Reuter Gdansk Solidarity’s leader, Lech Walesa, and his advisers have thrown down a challenge to Poland’s Communist authorities, demanding the relegalisation of the union and a broad array of Western-style freedoms.

Mr Walesa, his colleagues in Solidarity’s national leadership and about 60 senior opposition intellectuals have released a statement which accused the Communist Party of maintaining a stranglehold on public life. “Trade union pluralism alone will not solve the economic and political crisis,’’ said the statement, issued in the Baltic port of Gdansk. “What is needed is the freedom to create self-managing bodies and associations of all types.” Solidarity sources said

Mr Walesa would meet the Interior Minister, Czeslaw Kiszczak, tomorrow or on Thursday to prepare talks on Poland’s future between the Government, independent figures and the union, which was suppressed under martial law in late 1981. Mr Walesa met Mr Kiszczak for the first time in more than six years on August 31. The Minister promised to consider restoring Solidarity’s legal status, but other officials have said the union cannot re-emerge as an independent mass labour

movement. The authorities resumed contacts with Mr Walesa after strikes last month which developed into Poland’s worst labour unrest since 1981. They have said they will break off the planned talks if Solidarity foments new industrial unrest. “The next wave of strikes may be even more massive and dramatic in character,” the Gdansk opposition statement said. “In view of this prospect, all political and social forces in Poland must act quickly. One cannot wait

any longer. “Problems will not be solved by abrasive propaganda or by disgusting reprisals. Without the swift recognition of Solidarity’s right to legal activity, it will not be possible to win the social trust necessary to achieve reforms.” The statement urged the authorities to permit independent political, economic, artistic and other professional groups and to let peasants and young people organise themselves. “Poland must be freed from the paralys-

ing grip of the party,” it said. Opposition activists at the Gdansk meeting also threw their support behind Mr Walesa personally, expressing faith in his ability to extract concessions from the authorities. Some radical workers prominent in last month’s unrest have voiced fears he may be too willing to compromise with the Government. But Sunday’s vote of confidence in him reflected an awareness of his negotiating skills and international fame.