truth and reconciliation commission that would examine the country’s past behind the Iron Curtain, BosNewsLife monitored Thursday, May 26. General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who imposed martial law under Communism and former President Lech Walesa have discussed their plans with Polish and international media.
The 81-year Jaruzelski is campaigning to be seen not as a former oppressor but as a
patriot who acted to spare Poland a Soviet invasion. "The greater evil would have been intervention" by Soviet troops, he said in an interview this week.
"That would have been preceded by an extreme destabilization of the country, anarchy, economic catastrophe," he told The Associated Press news agency. "I regret, deplore, apologize for what … took place."
He suggested a truth and reconciliation commission can help Poland to overcome bitter
divisions over its turbulent Communist past. The general has received support for his efforts from former enemy Lech Walesa, who was Poland’s first democratically elected President and the founder of Solidarity.
POPE INSPIRATION
Walesa’s movement also got inspiration from late Polish born Pope John Paul II, who often expressed his concern about political and religious persecution in his home country where the Catholic church plays a prominent role. It is still unclear who will supervise the commission, which could be compared to a similar initiative in South Africa, which was launched after years of apartheid.
Walesa wants the truth and reconciliation commission to be formed by the current state-funded National Remembrance Institute, which investigates Communist and Nazi era crimes, while Jaruzelski prefers for it to be independent.
Yet both men made clear they determined to find a solution and go ahead with the commission, a little more than a year after Poland joined the European Union as a democratic nation.
MEDIA APPEAL
Their appeal in media to look towards the future by facing the past with a special commission comes amid growing pressure from opposition right-wing politicians to expose those who secretly collaborated with the hated communist regime.
In a first sign of some reconciliation between Walesa and Jaruzelski strongly denied press suggestions Walesa worked for Communist authorities as a secret police agent. The general said Walesa’s victory over the Communists was the "strongest proof" of his anti-Communist commitment.
Some have criticized Walesa for reaching out to Jaruzelski during a television debate last Sunday, May 22. "I thought I would bury myself with shame," Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, a former Solidarity leader who heads a newly formed centrist party, reportedly said on Radio Zet. "A man, a legend, the great Walesa, an authority for millions of people throughout the world, in a humiliating way kindly asked the general to publicly say that he is O.K."
ANGRY MAYOR
Others agree, including the conservative mayor of Warsaw Lech Kaczynski and the man who is leading polls ahead of October presidential elections, along with his brother Jaroslaw, the head of the Law and Justice Party, according news reports. Kaczynski lead a call for Jaruzelski to be stripped of his rank as general, because of his involvement in the Communist regime.
"I have grown used to the (attacks) for martial law and the other things," Jaruzelski said in an AP interview Monday, May 23. But he added that it is intolerable to hear Kaczynski say that "Russia is more my motherland than Poland and his brother calls me a traitor."
"Let them charge me for martial law, for other things, but … if someone is considered a traitor of the nation, this is not a physical, but a moral punishment," Jaruzelski added. (With Chief International Correspondent Stefan J. Bos at BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest and reports from Poland)
