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Post by Bonobo on May 31, 2009 12:45:35 GMT 1
like Judas who got a nasty role to play and had to act it out so that the biblical story could be fullfilled. Well, let's not exaggerate. As far as I remember Judas was very much admitting he served evil. So admitting that he couldn't bear it and committed suicide. Which is again not too wise as it is kind of 'shutting God' mouth, or is it not? The 'nasty role' to be played by Judas as a part of Goddly plan is very, I mean, VERY heretic asumption, although quite popular lately in some circles ;D I am saying heretic, not 'surely untrue', mind the difference. Hmm, I think we should forgive Jaruzelski. Let`s be Christian.
Jaruzelski: I agonized for months over martial law
By RYAN LUCAS
5/28/09
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's last communist leader said Thursday that he had agonized for months before declaring martial law in 1981 to try to crush the Solidarity freedom movement knowing he would make enemies of his countrymen.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski acknowledged his sins and those of his gover nment in defending communism in the face of strikes and protests that eventually resulted in the fall of his regime.
He says many fellow Poles continue to "spit on my name" although he helped the peaceful transition from communist state to free-market democracy starting with semi-free elections nearly 20 years ago on June 4, 1989.
Jaruzelski remains a deeply divisive figure in Poland after imposing martial law. Some view him as a traitor who did Moscow's dirty work, while others say he was a patriot who spared the country the bloodshed of a Soviet invasion such as in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Poles awoke on Dec. 13, 1981, to Jaruzelski in his drab olive military uniform and trademark tinted glasses — worn because of snowblindness developed during an earlier exile in Siberia — announcing the crackdown on television.
Tanks rumbled through city streets and thousands of pro-democracy activists, including Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, were rounded up and placed in internment camps. Around 100 people were killed.
"Before imposing martial law, the months, weeks, days, hours for me were a nightmare," said Jaruzelski, 85, who headed the communist party until 1989, the year before it was disbanded.
"It was an ordeal, thinking about how to resolve the situation. I knew that no matter how it ends — and I believed it would end with the situation stabilizing — that20a large part of society will be hostile toward me, is going to spit on my name, and that's what happened, even today."
He has faced a slew of trials for his role in crackdowns during communist rule but has never been convicted. Two cases continue: one over the shooting of shipyard workers by soldiers during food price protests in Dec. 1970 and another which started last year over his decision to impose martial law.
Speaking in his wood-paneled office, Jaruzelski said Thursday that he had wanted to reform the communist system from within, even if that meant sharing power with the Solidarity-led democratic opposition.
It was obvious that change was coming when he first met Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 and they sat together to discuss badly needed reforms.
"In contrast with his predecessors, he was a younger man, broad minded. You could discuss things with him without inhibition ... it was a completely different world," said Jaruzelski. "It was the first time you could actually talk to a Soviet leader."
Jaruzelski, who headed the Polish government from 1981-85, acknowledged errors were made in pursuing an ideology he believed in — and imprisoned thousands of his countrymen to defend.
"I see how many mistakes we made, how many sins we committed — that I committed too," he said.
"But we've been pushed into a pos ition in which we say it was all bad, that we moved from a country of absolute evil to a country of absolute universal good.
"Not everything was bad then — there were good things, such as social safety net — and not everything now is good, because with the economy and democracy there are things that worry us and even anger us."
He has been out of active politics for almost 20 years and now describes himself as a social democrat. He said he is proud of Poland's achievements since 1989, joining NATO in 1999 and the European Union five years later.
And in a wry reference to the hardships of communism with its empty store shelves, he added that he also likes "that the shops are full of goods."
He has been stung for years by accusations that he was a Moscow-backed traitor to his nation and insists he is a Polish patriot.
Raised in a Roman Catholic family of landed gentry, Jaruzelski and his family were deported to Siberia by the Red Army during World War II. There, Jaruzelski was struck by snow blindness and his father died.
He joined the Polish military attached to the Soviet army and fought the Nazis, later embracing communism. He says he was attracted by an ideology that seemed to address the terrible injustice and inequality he'd seen in prewar Poland.
Jaruzelski served as a general and defense minister in the 1970s an d only entered politics as prime minister in 1981 as the regime began its long battle with Solidarity.
He says now that his wife and daughter always ask if he there had been any point in entering politics.
"I can only say I agree. And when you ask me what mistakes I made, there were many, but one of the greatest was allowing myself to be talked into getting involved in politics."
"But I took that path, and I'm paying for it today. I paid a great price, bore a great weight with my responsibilities. "   ![]() [/img] |
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Post by Bonobo on Jun 16, 2009 22:05:56 GMT 1
The soldier and the shipyard worker
By Simon Hooper
CNN
5/29/09
Jaruzelski, left, and Walesa attend the first multi-party session of the Polish parliament following elections in 1989.
Jaruzelski, left, and Walesa attend the first multi-party session of the Polish parliament following elections in 1989.
(CNN) -- One was the archetypal military strongman, intent on maintaining the social order and saving his country from "catastrophe. " The other was a charismatic shipyard electrician and trade union leader who was just as determined to lead his countrymen to freedom.
Yet nowadays Wojciech Jaruzelski, the last leader of communist Poland, and Lech Walesa both claim, in their different ways, to have played their part in setting Poland on the path to democracy.
The rise of Solidarity, the union and social movement which Walesa founded among the dockers of Gdansk in 1980, was crucial to the ultimate collapse of communism in Poland and across the Soviet bloc.
Feted in the West, Walesa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 after spending nearly a year locked up as Jaruzelski clamped down on dissent, becoming a symbol of a rising tide of resentment behind the Iron Curtain.
By 1989, Solidarity had become an unstoppable social movement, sweeping to victory as the communist authorities relinquished their grip on power by allowing free elections. Walesa describes the union as a screw turning in the opposite direction to the communist regime, ultimately "destroying the engine."
"The system was 10 times less efficient than the western system," Walesa told CNN, recalling his decade-long struggle. "It paid less, life was worse. Each country enslaved by the Soviets was different and in Poland we had TV and people could travel so we knew life could be better... and we'd never given up."
But Jaruzelski still believes that without his decision to impose martial law in 1981, Poland's revolt against Soviet domination would have been as ruthlessly and violently quashed by Moscow as had those in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
"For me personally it was a great tragedy, the consequences of which I've felt to this day," Jaruzelski told CNN. "Martial law was evil. But it was less evil than the real and inevitable threat we were facing. There was a threat of an explosion -- and an explosion in Poland would have meant an explosion throughout Europe."
As a key link in the Soviet Union's chain of Eastern European satellite states, Jaruzelski believes Moscow would never have allowed Poland to break away peacefully: "I feared a terrible catastrophe. If martial law had not happened, Poland might have been flooded by a sea of blood."
Walesa admits the threat of Soviet intervention in the early 1980s was real, but says Solidarity had already won the argument against communism by the time Jaruzelski imposed martial law.
"I knew we were not going to fight," he said. "Because in Poland there were over 200,000 Soviet troops, they had nuclear arms, and they shot better than us. We could conquer them only this way: you can arrest us, but when we come out we do the same and we will never work for communism again."
Even his arrest and imprisonment only deepened Walesa's belief that Jaruzelski's government could be toppled: "My friends advised me to run away but I made a different decision. When they came to arrest me, I said, 'You have lost, I have won. You have just put the last nails into the coffin of communism.'"
These days Jaruzelski is no defender of the system which he served, describing communism as "beautiful and noble, but utopian." Yet he believes Solidarity's demands in the early 1980s amounted to an "economic time bomb" and that Poland was not ready for democracy at the time.
"The system was bad, I admit it today," he said. "But at the time, I wasn't aware of that. Everything has to ripen -- corn, fruit, man and societies. Western countries took centuries to arrive at democracy. Except for six or seven years after World War I Poland had never been democratic so it was a difficult process."
The Polish authorities also realized the urgency of economic and political reform, Jaruzelski adds, and had already begun the process before the Round Table talks with Solidarity in 1989 which led to that year's elections.
"It was a difficult and painful process for both sides," he said. "I can talk primarily of the government side, and what huge resistance I had to overcome among the people who were in power -- in the party, in the state, the army and the security apparatus."
Both men pay tribute to outside forces which made the leap to democracy possible. For Jaruzelski, Mikhail Gorbachev's emergence in the Kremlin marked a "breakthrough moment" in which the threat of Soviet military intervention in Poland was lifted and a possible end to the Cold War loomed into sight.
Walesa and Jaruzelski also acknowledge the unique role of the Polish-born Pope John Paul II and the Catholic church in brokering peaceful talks between the two sides.
For Jaruzelski though, the fall of communism was not the product of Solidarity alone or a single summer of upheaval but "a great river made up of numerous streams."
"Nobody should monopolize that victory," he said. "Because in this stream there was Gorbachev; there was Reagan and then Bush, who caused the weakening of the Soviet Union by the arms race; there was Solidarity; there was the pope, and there were also -- which I will say without humbleness -- the reformists within the authorities at the time."
Both Jaruzelski and Walesa paint themselves as reluctant leaders. Jaruzelski describes his decision to become Polish prime minister as "one of the greatest mistakes of my life" while Walesa, who was elected Polish president in 1990, says it was never his wish to lead his country -- "but who else could have done it?"
Jaruzelski remains a divisive figure in modern Poland, derided by many as a living symbol of an oppressive past and occasionally summoned to court rooms to answer charges relating to his career as a leading servant of the communist regime.
"My generation, which remembers those times and can evaluate them in a balanced way, is passing away," he said. "And the new, younger generation, through school, books and TV, are being indoctrinated to be critical of martial law. Still, a large part of the society -- the majority I think -- considers martial law to have been inevitable and justified."
Yet even Jaruzelski says Poles can be "proud" of their role in the downfall of communist regimes across Europe: "The Polish elections preceded the revolutions in Hungary and in Czechoslovakia and the fall of the Berlin Wall. That impulse, that example that came from us, was of great significance and I think it is our great historical tribute."
Walesa, unsurprisingly, offers a more direct assessment: "Poland knocked out the teeth of the Soviet bear. Once we had done that, knocking down the Berlin Wall, the Velvet Revolution, all was made possible -- but only once the bear had no teeth."
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Post by Bonobo on Jul 8, 2009 21:16:42 GMT 1
Jaruzelski ordered defector's plane be shot down
thenews.pl
02.07.2009
Wojciech Jaruzelski personally ordered a plane, flown by a man escaping communist Poland to defect to Austria, be shot down in 1975.
The plane exploded over Czechoslovakia on 16 July 1975. The pilot, 36-year old Dionizy Bielañski, was trying to escape from communist Poland to Austria. He was killed when his plane was fired at by a Czechoslovakian jet fighter. The plane wreckage was found just eight kilometers from the Austrian border.
Communist authorities tried to cover up the killing, calling it "an accident."
The Institute of Public Remembrance (IPN), however, says it has discovered documents which confirm, beyond reasonable doubt, that the order to shoot the plane out of the sky came from General Wojciech Jaruzelski when he was Minister of National Defense.
'The document was found in the Wroc³aw archives. It is a note written by the officer on duty at the local militia headquarters, " says £ukasz Kamiñski of the Institute of National Remembrance.
"He recorded information received from Krakow, which said that a Polish plane was shot down over Czechoslovakia at the personal order of Defense Minister Jaruzelski. It is the first written document from our archive that confirms information which we obtained from witnesses. An investigation is underway, and this will surely be an important piece of evidence," he said.
The circumstances of the incident remain vague but the note clearly shows who gave the order, thinks historian Wojciech Roszkowski. "It was equal to shooting people who attempted to run away from Eastern Germany through the Berlin Wall - which is a crime," said Roszkowski.
************ ********* ********* ********* ******
Jaruzelski could not have ordered plane shooting
thenews.pl
03.07.2009
General Jaruzelski could not have given orders to shoot down a defector's plane over Czechoslovakia in 1975, says an historian from the Institute for National Remembrance (IPN).
It was reported, Thursday, that Wojciech Jaruzelski, at the time when he was Defense Minister, personally ordered a plane, flown by a man escaping communist Poland, be shot down.
The plane exploded over Czechoslovakia on 16 July 1975. The pilot, 36-year old Dionizy Bielañski, was trying to escape from communist Poland to Austria. He was killed when his plane was fired at by a Czechoslovakian jet fighter. The plane wreckage was found just eight kilometers from the Austrian border.
£ukasz Kamiñski of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) said they have a document, found in the Wroc³aw archives, which proves that the plane was shot down on the orders of Jaruzelski.
But another historian from the IPN, Antoni Dudek has pointed out that Jaruzelski had no power to order the Czechoslovakian air force to do anything.
Antoni Dudek said that it has so far been unclear what role the Polish communist authorities played in the downing of the light airplane, though it's fairly obvious that the Czechoslovak authorities had first contacted the Polish side to receive a go-ahead signal.
Many escapees from Poland had tried to reach Austria via Czechoslovakia, but most tried to do so on foot, through the mountains. This made the border gaurds on both sides particularly alert. The attempt to use a plane to escape had been a particularly spectacular attempt to get around this problem, said Dudek.
He also said he could not be certain whether the recently discovered document - a memo written by a security service duty officer in Wroc³aw - would be qualified as evidence by the prosecutors office.
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Post by tufta on Jul 8, 2009 21:24:47 GMT 1
are we entilled to forgive in the name of those who died from his hand?
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Post by Bonobo on Sept 16, 2009 22:24:16 GMT 1
Thatcher - 'Jaruzelski was a patriot'
thenews.pl
12.09.2009
Prime Minister Margeret Thatcher was "deeply impressed" by the courage and patriotism that General Jaruzelski showed as the communist fell from power in 1989, new documents show.
Thatcher's positive attitude to Jaruzelski is revealed in previously unreleased documents taken from the Kremlin's archives by Russian historical researcher Pavel Stroilov, who brought them to London some years ago.
The papers, previously part of the Mikhail Gorbachov foundation's collection, show that Thatcher was scared that a united Germany, and the dramatic political and social changes sweeping Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, would destabilise the region and were not in Western interests.
The Times (UK) reports that Thatcher, in a meeting with Gorbachov in the autumn of 1989, expressed her admiration for how calmly the Russian leader had taken the June elections in Poland, which brought the Mazowiecki government to power 20 years ago.
Iron Lady
And after praising Jaruzelski, Thatcher is reported as saying: "My understanding of your position is the following: you welcome each country developing in its own way, on condition that the Warsaw Pact remains in place. I understand this position perfectly."
The remarks praising communists by the former UK prime minister will surprise many in Poland, coming from a politician who had built her reputation globally on her "Iron Lady" tough stance against communism throughout the 1980s.
The now Baroness Margeret Thatcher was to receive an honorary doctorate from Lodz university this summer. But after she broke her arm in June, it was decided to call off the ceremony.
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Post by Bonobo on Oct 26, 2009 22:09:10 GMT 1
 PHOTO: General Wojciech Jaruzelski, 86, at his Warsaw Office
GENERAL JARUZELSKI'S INTERVIEW FOR IZVESTIA
Wojciech Jaruzelski: "American missile shield was not to enhance Poland's security"
On Tuesday, October 20, 2009, American Vice President Joe Biden came to Warsaw to assure that the United States would embrace Poland by its new system of missile defense (BMD). On the same day, a popular Russian daily Izvestia printed an interview of General Wojciech Jaruzelski. The interview granted to Izvestia's foreign correspondent Oleg Shevtsov was made in Paris, on September 18, 2009. The title was taken from the response of the General to a final question: "How do you assess the American withdrawal from deployment of a BMD system in Poland?" A coincidence? Rather not. From the very beginning, the Russians strongly opposed a planned building of a U.S. missile receptor base in Poland and of a U.S. forward radar system in the Czech Republic and they ditched it with the help of the Obama Administration. The interview of the last communist leader of Poland presents his biography and his views on Polish–Russian relations. It is very interesting and that's why I decided to translate it from Russian to English and to publish it. – David Dastych
Full text of the interview:
Former President of Poland, Wojciech Jaruzelski, is one of the most controversial figures in the current history of his country. For some people he is almost a criminal, an organizer of a military coup d'etat, a strangler of democracy in full and of the activists of the "Solidarity" trade union in particular. For other, he is a patriot who had saved his country from an armed intervention of the Warsaw Pact, and a man, who helped to dismember the world communist system. And how he, himself, appraises his part in the history? About this and a number of other questions discusses with General Jaruzelski an Izvestia's correspondent in Paris, Oleg Shevtsov.
"Polish `troglodytes' incited Brezhnev to intervene"
Question: You have entered history as "the last dictator of Poland", the one who imposed the martial law on the 13th of December 1981. Now there is going on a criminal trial, where responsibility is put on you for all that has happened in these years. Do you feel culpable?
Photo: Former communist leaders Jaruzelski and Kania at court in Warsaw.
Photo: Former communist leaders Jaruzelski and Kania at court in Warsaw.
Answer: I confess for twelve years now. And then, in 1981, I knew: the decision to introduce the martial law will hang on me to the end of my days. I talked about it during the trial. The martial law was a nightmare for me. But at that time, in my opinion, there was no other variant which could be better for Poland. I knew the realities of that epoch. I knew what could menace to us in case we resigned of the introduction of the "law of war" [martial law]. I can remind to you the known words of Brezhnev: "If the Polish communists would submit themselves to counter-revolutiona ry public feeling, then the fate of Poland, the fate of peace in Europe would be solved by force." If I, or you, were a Soviet general and could see the developments in Poland, I would have decided to intervene.
Q: Was there any other decision? What your comrades of the Party leadership suggested to you?
A: The martial law – it was an evil, but a smaller evil in comparison to that catastrophe we stood at the threshold of. There were particular political reasons for this catastrophe [to happen]. In the Polish Communist Party there were dogmatists – "troglodytes" , as I named them – who did not want any reforms and were ready to get rid of them at any price. They maintained secret contacts with the leaders of the USSR, incited them to military intervention. In the inner circle of Brezhnev there also were old dogmatists – Romanov, Grishin. Well, I should be careful [pointing to] old sclerotics: Brezhnev died at 75, and I am already 86 years old.
There were also economic reasons. At that time USSR, Czechoslovakia and GDR [East Germany] offered main help to Poland – we needed all: products, energy, raw materials. Beginning from the 1st of January 1982, all supplies of natural gas were to be cut off. Already in December 1981, we suffered big downfall of the supply of energy-portents. And, finally, the third threat – the military one. Being the Commander-in- Chief I knew: Soviet armies were concentrated at our frontiers. I understood too well what that meant.
I couldn't forget about still one more factor. Following Yalta, after the year 1945, the [Western] frontier of Poland changed favorably for us. At that time, the only guarantor of our Western frontier territories was Stalin, who pushed frontiers Westward to enlarge the zone of Soviet influence. Western Germany [FRG] opposed this. In 1967, General de Gaulle was the only one among the Western European politicians, who came to Poland from the West, entering ten kilometers deep into former [German] Silesia. By this |
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Post by Bonobo on Nov 2, 2009 23:11:24 GMT 1
The last of the old East Bloc leaders says Poles should be thanking him instead of trying to throw him in jail: `There would have been a sea of blood,' he says
Anna Porter
Globe and Mail
Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009
When he was the leader of Poland and one of the more feared men on the continent, General Wojciech Jaruzelski commanded a huge bureaucracy and operated behind a wall of security. Today his safekeeping falls to a single desultory soldier, and his office staff consists of a blond secretary who confesses that she isn't overly busy.
But her boss is still an imposing figure. Tall, spare and erect in his immaculate grey suit, the man who famously – and tragically – clashed with Lech Walesa and his Solidarity trade unionists wears his trademark dark glasses and remains, despite thinning hair and a bandage on his cheek, the picture of a statesman: polite, cool, a tad superior.
When we meet, he takes my hand and, with old-world formality, brushes my fingers with his lips for an uncomfortable fraction of a second. The cool doesn't last much longer.
Noticing that I am not recording the interview (conducted with the help of a Polish interpreter) , he is suddenly furious, complaining that I should write faster. He has no intention of repeating himself if I miss something.
The general has a better reason to be irritable. All the festivities marking the 20th anniversary of fall of the Berlin Wall make the death of communism seem like ancient history, and yet Poland's last Communist head of state is still trying to stay out of jail.
The others who led East Bloc nations when the wall came down have died or at least been punished – even Egon Krenz, who was East Germany's last president for a matter of weeks in 1989, has spent time behind bars. But Poland has yet to convict Gen. Jaruzelski who, at 86, finds himself back on trial and facing a 10-year sentence for "acts against the Polish nation."
Having fought to clear his name since he left office, he refuses to give up now. He has a new book out (the first was a bestseller), and is so keen to defend himself that, when I mention he was first accused of treason after stepping down in 1990, he leaps from his chair and shouts: "Never that!" as though it hadn't happened. Then he explains: "After five years of hearings and dozens of witnesses, I was found not guilty."
But even after all these years, he is being pursued for the same sin: his infamous decision to declare martial law on Dec. 13, 1981. Three days later, miners went on strike, and the police responded with water cannons, tanks and guns.
More than 100 protesters died, but the general argues that, instead of punishing him, Poles should be thanking him.
SLAVE LABOURER
Wojciech Jaruzelski was born near Poland's eastern border into a well-to-do, rural family, members of the gentry who had fought to defend the nation against the Russians. In 1941, after the Soviet occupation of Polish territory allowed by the notorious Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the family was shipped off to Siberia as slave labourers. His father died there, and young Wojciech made his coffin.
But he became an enthusiastic cadre in the Polish section of the Red Army and, three years later, was back in Poland as Soviet forces surged westward. From a distance he watched as Warsaw was destroyed, under orders from Moscow not to interfere until the Germans had finished off the Polish resistance.
Even so, he joined the Communist Party and took its teaching seriously. "The Communist Manifesto," he tells me, "is about equality, social justice; it is ethical, moral, a beautiful idea – but it turned out to be utopian."
Paradise was certainly lost by 1968, when he led the Polish military in the Warsaw Pact invasion that snuffed out Czechoslovakia' s taste of "socialism with a human face."
In 1981, he became prime minister, only to find the tables had turned. Solidarity, with 10 million members, was threatening to unseat Moscow's puppet government. The Red Army had 20 divisions on the border, but "the Polish army would have resisted," he insists. "There would have been a sea of blood."
Future Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, then KGB boss, summoned him to a meeting. "He wanted to discuss how I would deal with Solidarity. I knew that [East Bloc leaders] were pushing him to attack Poland. He accused me of being unable to control the situation."
The general insisted he could cope, but feared he might be hauled off to Moscow to stand trial. Was he afraid? Of course not. "I was a soldier," he yells. "I was shot twice during the war." He also was gambling that the Soviets, then bogged down in Afghanistan, were not keen on a second war.
"Solidarity, " he adds, trying to crack a smile, "wasn't a company of angels," but there were "troglodytes" in his camp as well. Martial law was his only option, he claims – "I was pressured to do more."
Poland's Institute of National Memory thinks otherwise. Created to investigate war crimes, the agency now has a staff of 2,000 looking into wrongdoings under the Communists. It has charged the general under the Criminal Code with "directing a criminal organization" – the military council that imposed martial law.
A legal device normally used against criminal gangs, this infuriates the general. "They can't try me again for the same supposed crime …," he shouts, "So, after 10 years, a government-sponsore d institute is trying again, with no new evidence and no new witnesses."
Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and glasnost hero Mikhail Gorbachev have criticized the move, and Gen. Jaruzelski tells me to read about him in Mr. Gorbachev's memoirs, suggesting his accusers do the same.
"They were not there. They never suffered, they didn't go to prison, yet they scream the loudest. Michnik, who went to prison, understands. "
Celebrated Polish intellectual Adam Michnik was a prisoner of conscience under Communist rule, but has since befriended the man who had him jailed, and wrote the introduction to the first Jaruzelski book. "We understand each other," the general says.
The new book, he adds, contains what he wants to say if forced to testify. "It is my statement to the court. It will be there long after I am gone. My first-hand account. A record of my contribution to history."
GORBACHEV'S MODEL
He explains that his statement addresses the Soviet threat and the Kremlin's conviction in 1981 that Poland was "an island of heresy" in the Communist world. "Here, culture and science were almost free," he says. "The Church was allowed to gather its faithful, there was some private property. Later, Gorbachev told me, our Polish reforms had been a laboratory for his perestroika. "
Of course, he adds, "history is always infected with politics. It is never objective."
Although he challenges the Institute's "infected" version of history, he admits to having been ambitious at one time. How else could someone have climbed so high within the Communist ranks?
But he says that "I have no expectations, now. The worst that can happen to a person is death, and I am there. I merely hope that the next generation will understand my role in the context of my time in Siberia, my being a front-line soldier, my 12 years as head of the army, and that, while I am the one who declared martial law, I am also the one who … negotiated democracy."
And yet now, instead of gratitude, he finds himself back in court again. Even his new book is a dud. The last one saw people line up for his autograph, but this time, he complains, nobody comes.
Why aren't people more interested?
"It's biology," he says. "Those who remember are dying, and the young are brainwashed by black-and-white versions of history" which, in reality, is "multi-coloured, like life."
He contends that "I am not idealizing my life. When I see how others abuse history, I think I should at least provide the truth. My truth.
"I am reaching the end of my life – I have nothing to fear from the truth."
That may be – but justice still poses a threat, even to someone so sure of his own innocence.
As the daughter of one of the victims of martial law said after 22 police officers who'd been charged were acquitted, if they didn't do it, "who killed my father?"
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Post by Bonobo on Nov 30, 2009 22:42:36 GMT 1
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojciech_Jaruzelski
Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski was born on 6 July 1923,[1] into a family of gentry.[1][2] He was raised on the family estate near Wysokie (in the vicinity of Białystok). He was educated in a Catholic school during the 1930s.[1]
On 1 September 1939, the September Campaign started when Poland was invaded by Germany, with the latter country aided by another invasion begun sixteen days later by the Soviet Union. The invasions resulted in the defeat of Poland by the following month, and its partition between Soviet and German control. During the campaign, Jaruzelski and his family were captured by the army of the Soviet Union, and deported to that country.[1] In 1940 at the age of sixteen,[3] Jaruzelski was sent to the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic,[1], where he performed forced labour in the Karaganda coal mines. During his labour work, he became an orphan, and having experienced snow blindness, developed permanent damage to his eyes and back.[2] He was later selected for enrollment into the Soviet Officer Training School by the Soviet authorities.[1] During his time in the Kazakh Republic, Jaruzelski wanted to join the non-Soviet controlled Polish exile army led by Władysław Anders,[3] but in 1943,[4] by which time the Soviet Union was fighting in Europe against Germany in the Soviet-German War, he joined the Polish army units being formed under Soviet command.[2] He served in the Soviet-sponsored First Polish Army during the war.[1] He participated in the Soviet military takeover of Warsaw and the Battle of Berlin,[1] both of which occurred in 1945. By the time the war ended that year, he had gained the rank of lieutenant.[2] He "further credited himself in Soviet eyes"[1] by engaging in combat with the Polish Home Army, an anti-communist organization, from 1945 to 1947.[1]
After the end of the war, Jaruzelski graduated from the Polish Higher Infantry School, an event which was followed by a graduation from the General Staff Academy.[4] He joined Poland's communist party, the Polish United Workers Party, in 1948.[4] In the first post-war years, he was among the military fighting the Polish anti-communist guerrillas ("cursed soldiers") in the Świętokrzyskie region. A BBC News profile of Jaruzelski says that his career "took off after the departure [from Poland] in 1956 of the Soviet Field Marshal, Konstantin Rokossovsky"[2], who had been Poland's Commander in Chief and Minister of Defence.[2] Jaruzelski became the chief political officer of the Polish armed forces in 1960, its chief of staff in 1964; and he became the Polish Minister of Defense in 1968,[2] four years after he was elected to be a member of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers Party.[4]
In 1970, he was involved in the plot against Władysław Gomułka, which led to the appointment of Edward Gierek as Communist Party General Secretary. He took part in organizing the suppression of striking workers, which led to massacres in the coastal cities of Gdańsk, Gdynia, Elbląg and Szczecin. In December 1970, Jaruzelski became a candidate member for the Politburo of the Polish United Workers Party, the chief executive body of the communist administration of Poland, obtaining full membership the following year.[1]
[edit] Leader of the Polish military government
On 11 February 1981, Jaruzelski was elected Prime Minister of Poland and became the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers Party on October 18 the same year.[4]
On 13 December 1981, Jaruzelski imposed martial law in Poland. He was the member of the Military Council of National Salvation. According to his explanation, this action was intended to prevent a threat of Soviet invasion[5]. A BBC News profile of Jaruzelski contends that the establishment of martial law was "an attempt to suppress the Solidarity movement."[2] Most former opposition members argue that it was merely an action by the Polish Communist regime to retain power and strangle the newly born and developing civil society. Some even hold that the circumstances of the martial law were even in violation of the Communist constitution.
Historical evidence released under Russian President Boris Yeltsin has been brought to light indicating that the Soviet Union did not plan to invade Poland; in fact, the Soviets strictly rejected Jaruzelski's request for military help in 1981, leaving the Solidarity "problem" to be sorted out by the Polish government. However, the exact plans of the Soviet Union at that time have never been determined. Jaruzelski, however, has justified cracking down by alleging that the threat of Soviet intervention was quite likely had he not dealt with Solidarity internally. This question, as well as many other facts about Poland in the years 1945–1989, are presently under the investigation of government historians at the Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, IPN), whose publications reveal facts from the Communist-era archives. Additionally, there are numerous confirmations from Czech army officers of the time speaking of "Operation Krkonose", plan of armed invasion of Poland, because of which many units of the People's army of the Czechoslovakia were stationed on highest alert, ready for deployment within hours.[6]
In 1982 he helped reorganize the Front of National Unity, the organization the Communists used to manage their satellite parties, as the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth.
In 1985, Jaruzelski resigned as prime minister and defence minister and became chairman of the Polish Council of State--a post equivalent to that of president.
[edit] Political reforms and presidency
The policies of Mikhail Gorbachev also stimulated political reform in Poland. By the close of the tenth plenary session in December 1988, the Communist Party was forced, after strikes, to approach leaders of Solidarity for talks.
From 6 February to 15 April 1989, negotiations were held between 13 working groups during 94 sessions of the roundtable talks.[1] These negotiations "radically altered the shape of the Polish government and society"[1], and resulted in an agreement which stated that a great degree of political power would be given to a newly created bicameral legislature. It also created a new post of president to act as head of state and chief executive.[1] Solidarity was also declared a legal organization.[1] During the following Polish elections the Communists won 65 percent of the seats in the Sejm, though the seats won were guaranteed and the Communists were unable to gain a majority, while 99 out of the 100 seats in the Senate freely contested were won by Solidarity-backed candidates.[1] Jaruzelski won the presidential ballot by one vote.[1]
Jaruzelski was unsuccessful in convincing Wałęsa to include Solidarity in a "grand coalition"[1] with the Communists, and Jaruzelski resigned his position of general secretary of the Polish Communist Party.[1] The Communists' two allied parties broke their long-standing alliance, forcing Jaruzelski to appoint Solidarity's Tadeusz Mazowiecki as the country's first non-Communist prime minister since 1948. Jaruzelski resigned as Poland's leader in 1990.[1] He was succeeded by Wałęsa in December. Subsequently, Jaruzelski faced charges for a number of actions such as murder that he committed while he was Defense Minister during the Communist period.
On 31 January 1991, General Jaruzelski retired from the army service.
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Post by Bonobo on Dec 8, 2009 22:41:32 GMT 1
UPDATE The last political leader in communist Poland, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, appealed for Russian support if the Polish military and police failed to suppress Solidarity protests in the country in late 1981.
Documents kept at Poland’s Institute of National Rememberance indicating such a line of events are soon to be released for the public.
Former president and Solidarity icon Lech Walesa expects that the investigation into the veracity of these allegations is pursued without involving politicians, saying that "a democratic country has diverse institutions for settling past events and securing the future. These institutions should do their job, whereas politicians should not interfere."
Historian Antoni Dudek has published in the institute’s bulletin a record of conversations between Jaruzelski and Soviet Marshall Viktor Kulikov. The documents are unequivocal proof of the Polish general’s intentions three days ahead of the imposition of martial law.
Dudek told Polish Radio "Jaruzelski said: "if Solidarity will confine its actions to strikes, then we will manage it, yet we may not rule out that they will take to the streets." He went on to give a specific example of Upper Silesia to show Kulikov the scale of the problem. Jaruzelski said "there are 4 million people living in the region and should the 4 million hold protests, I will not cope there with just one squadron stationed there and could I then count on your military assistance?"
The archive material runs counter to the line of defence of Wojciech Jaruzelski, who has so far claimed that imposing martial law on 13 December 1981 was an attempt at warding off the Soviet invasion. Meanwhile, the documents show that Russia had not planned any military intervention for fear of a reaction from the West. (aba/jb)
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Post by valpomike on Dec 9, 2009 3:05:38 GMT 1
What is the thinking of the people of Poland on the General? And what do you think?
Mike
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Post by Bonobo on Dec 11, 2009 23:54:22 GMT 1
What is the thinking of the people of Poland on the General? And what do you think? Mike A confirmed communist, lackey of Soviet Union, but during the transformation time 1989-1991 he shared and later gave up power to others. Today he constantly apologises for the evil he has brought on people with his martial law. A repentant sinner. A very controvercial figure. |
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Post by tufta on Dec 12, 2009 11:12:10 GMT 1
What is the thinking of the people of Poland on the General? And what do you think? Mike A confirmed communist, lackey of Soviet Union, but during the transformation time 1989-1991 he shared and later gave up power to others. If he wouldn't give up power in time he would most probably have to run away to South America like the East-German Erich Hoenecker had to. A sinner. Full stop. ;D |
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Post by locopolaco on Dec 12, 2009 22:46:14 GMT 1
i'm surprised i haven't commented on this but now i'll have to read all your responses and poder them a bit.  |
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Post by Bonobo on Dec 13, 2009 21:55:18 GMT 1
A confirmed communist, lackey of Soviet Union, but during the transformation time 1989-1991 he shared and later gave up power to others. If he wouldn't give up power in time he would most probably have to run away to South America like the East-German Erich Hoenecker had to. A sinner. Full stop. ;D I tend to see a repentant sinner in Jaruzelski because 1. He was the one who started the Round Table talks, even against other party leaders` opinion. 2. He didn`t stick to his presidency for the full term of 5 years, he voluntarily resigned after a year, allowing Walesa to be chosen. Do you suggest there would be a rebellion if he hadn`t?? And Poland would repeat the Romanian variant around 1991/2 ?? Hmmm...... 3. Last but not least, don`t you think he was forced to introduce martial law? There was no other way. At the time the compromise between Solidarity and the communist government was impossible, the Soviet Union was still inhumanely strong, though weakened by Afghanistan and falling economy. If Jaruzelski had failed to to sth about Polish anticommunist rebellion, he would have been ousted by Soviet governors and replaced by Polish party hardliners. They would have drowned the country in blood, with thousands of victims. Is that what you think would be more proper? Do you think that Jaruzelski drowned the country in blood during the martial law? The answer is no. Though brutal, communist authorities never organised such mass killings of opposition members as happened in Chile under Pinochet`s rule in 1970s. Warsaw Rising comes to my mind again. Sorry for the comparison, but I can`t help it. The Warsaw Rising irresponsible leaders are to blame for inciting an event which ended with the massacre of 200.000. Have they ever apologised, as Jaruzelski did, who`s to blame for 100 people killed during the martial law? Poles are divided in their opinion. 44% for, 38 against, 22 undecided.  As usual, on the anniversary of the martial law, people gathered in front of general`s house, both opponents and supporters.  |
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Post by tufta on Dec 14, 2009 21:36:26 GMT 1
No agreement here. Sorry, Bo.
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Post by Bonobo on Dec 14, 2009 21:55:39 GMT 1
No agreement here. Sorry, Bo. I know you would never agree with me on this case. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D Jaruzelski isn`t a hero of my dreams. I will never forget the evil he brought to Poland in 1981 to save falling communism. I am a teenager of the martial law. My abhorence of communism, which had been mild earlier, skyrocketed in years 1981- 1984. But I am not blind. I am able to see the good that the general did. That is why I call him a repentant sinner. One more thing.. In late 1990s an old man came close and hit him on the head with a brick, in revenge for the martial law. The general was treated in hospital for a serious injury. However, he refused to sue the attacker, saying he understood his motives. |
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Post by Bonobo on Mar 7, 2011 23:41:38 GMT 1
Jaruzelski martial law case returns to court
07.03.2011 08:46
Eighty seven year-old General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who declared martial law in December 1981, is back in court for his role in the infamous crackdown against the Solidarity movement.
The legal process originally began in September 2008, but it was adjourned precisely a year later, owing to the poor health of one of the defendants.
Nine men were charged with responsibility for the crackdown in 1981 which saw 5000 people interned and close to 100 fatalities.
The principal defendants are General Jaruzelski, General Czeslaw Kiszczak – the former Minister of Internal Affairs who ordered the brutal suppression of a strike in the Wujek coalmine following the outbreak of martial law which resulted the deaths of nine striking miners - and Stanislaw Kania, the General Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party.
The charges were brought forward by the state-sponsored Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). The defendants could face ten years in prison of found guilty.
It has been reported that a number of high profile witnesses are in line to be called. Stanislaw Kania has asked lawyers to call on the then Solidarity chief Lech Walesa and the present editor-in-chief of the Gazeta Wyborcza daily Adam Michnik.
Jaruzelski has maintained that he initiated martial law to protect Poland from a possible intervention by the Soviet Union.
Documents released under the Boris Yeltsin Russian presidency in the 1990s suggest that on 29 October, 1981, General Secretary of the Soviet Union Yuri Andropov refused to send troops to Poland if protests against the planned crackdown got out of control.
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Post by Bonobo on Mar 20, 2011 14:43:29 GMT 1
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal has ruled that two decrees connected with the introduction of Martial Law by the communist Council of State in 1981 were inconsistent with the constitution.
Today’s announcement could pave the way for victims of the crackdown to claim compensation for their suffering at the hands of the communist regime.
As a result of the imposition of Martial Law in December 1981, thousands were imprisoned and approximately 100 killed.
The period lasted until July 1983, with detainment regularly enforced for those who broke the curfew or engaged in what was deemed to be an illegal gathering.
Countless Poles lost their jobs as a result of the upheaval. Many Solidarity activists were not released from prison until as late as 1986.
Nevertheless, Poland’s last communist leader, General Jaruzelski, has always claimed that the crackdown was the lesser of two evils, and that it deflected a Moscow-backed invasion.
In a separate case, Jaruzelski was himself brought to trial in 2008 for his role in the crime. A long-running adjournment put the case on ice the following year, but it returned to court last month. The 87-year-old was admitted to hospital on Friday with pleurisy and heart complications.
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Post by Bonobo on Jul 8, 2011 18:53:50 GMT 1
Doctors employed by a Warsaw district court have declared that Poland’s last communist leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, is too ill to take part in trials concerning his role in Cold War era crimes.
Wojciech Jaruzelski may be too ill to stand trial, doctors say. Photo: PAP/Adrian Starus
The general is currently embroiled in two long-running cases, most prominently for declaring Martial Law on 13 December 1981, and secondly, for allegedly clearing the use of live ammunition against protesters in Gdynia, northern Poland, in 1970.
In March this year, it was made public that the 87-year-old had been diagnosed with cancer. The poor health of Jaruzelski and his co-defendants has already stalled the process on several occasions.
It has now been postulated that Jaruzelski, who has been declared unfit to participate in court for at least a year, could be tried separately, so as to allow the procedures against his co-defendants to continue.
Regarding the imposition of Martial Law, which was a stark response to the Solidarity protest movement at the beginning of the 1980s, Jaruzelski has always argued that he set the process in motion to prevent an invasion from Moscow. About 100 people died in the crackdown, and thousands were arrested.
Meanwhile, the general denies green-lighting the use of gun-fire in 1970, describing the events, which left 44 dead, as a tragedy.
Poles remain divided about whether Jaruzelski should be tried for the imposition of Martial Law. Some subscribe to the notion that the action prevented a larger invasion from Moscow, whilst others hold that the general has blood on his hands.
Every December, on the anniversary of the declaration, protesters camp outside the general's house, bearing placards accusing the former leader of murder
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