The tenth anniversary of Poland's entry into NATO, the dangerous mission of Polish troops in Afghanistan, Polish-Russian war over Katyn.
Weekly press reviewed by Krystyna Kolosowska
Despite Moscow’s protests and threats the Yalta era ended on 12 March 1999, writes Wprost in a report looking at NATO ten years after it was joined by Poland as well as Hungary and the Czech Republic. In 2004, the alliance expanded to include the Baltics, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania. Today it has 26 members and has become the world’s biggest exporter of stability. Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, tells Wprost that thanks to joining NATO Poland left the so-called grey zone, the no man’s land which appeared after the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Poland is a part of a democratic community of values and goals, and the basic goal is trio ensure conditions for stable growth and self-fulfillment for our societies. Bogdan Klich, Poland’s defense minister, speaks of military security and a place among the free states, which Poland gained thanks to membership in NATO. Jerzy Buzek, MEP and former Polish prime minister, says Poland has secured its borders and closed a 200 year long period when its political and military future was uncertain. Secondly, it proved that it is a stable democracy, attracting foreign investors.
Newsweek writes that NATO and the Taliban are bracing up for a final countdown. Polish troops will land up in the centre of a war. Five months ago, Poles took control over Ghazni, a region in eastern Afghanistan, close to the border with Pakistan. Today, this ethnically diverse area is one of the most volatile in Afghanistan. It is crossed by the country’s most important road – from Kabul to Kandahar. It has strategic importance for NATO as well as for the Taliban. Americans, alarmed by their counter-intelligence that a spring offensive of the Taliban is in the offing, decided to reinforce their troops. Several thousand additional US troops will be sent to regions bordering on Ghazni. It is clear that, pushed out by the Americans, the rebels will seek shelter in Ghazni, protected by the small Polish contingent, numbering 1,600 troops, writes Newsweek.
Russian prosecutors have established that only 22 Polish officers were killed in Katyn in 1940 by the Soviet NKVD police. They failed to explain what happened to the remaining 22,000 Poles killed there. This matter will have to be settled by the Human Rights Tribunal in Strasbourg, writes the weekly Polityka. For years, Moscow blamed the Katyn massacre on the Nazi Germans. It was only in 1991 that the then Russian leader Boris Yeltsin officially told the world that the blame was carried by the Soviet NKVD secret police. But this did not put an end to the matter. Russian prosecutors, who investigated the crime, have so far refused to declare that the murdered Poles were innocent victims, as the Polish side wants them to. Russia does not want to plead guilty to the Katyn massacre and other Stalinist crimes. Why? Polityka quotes a Russian expert as saying that the Russian people are not ready for this yet.
Tygodnik Powszechny presents a report on the state of the Catholic Church in Poland and quotes some interesting surveys on the attitude of Poles towards religion. On the level of declarations, the picture looks ideal. Almost 70 percent of the people polled declare themselves to be religious. The problem starts when religion clashes with everyday life. In the hierarchy of values, Poles list religion on the seventh place, after such values as health, family happiness and work. A half of Poles accept contraception and pre-marital sex. Approval for divorce rose from 25 percent in 1999 to 44 percent last year. What arouses concern are surveys on religion among teenagers. A half of them do not know the main prayers, 60 percent are against the ban on contraception and 90 percent reject the church’s teachings concerning pre-marital sex. Though 80 percent of them believe in God, only one in five teenagers lives in accordance with Church teachings.
Przekroj bids farewell to Professor Zbigniew Religa, the renowned Polish heart surgeon, later politician and health minister, who died last Sunday at the age of 70. The article opens with a large photo presenting Religa in 1987. He is sitting, worn out after an all-night heart transplant operation, in the operating theater, next to his patient, who is still under anesthesia. In the corner of the room, an assistant has fallen asleep. Religa is wearing his mask and rubber gloves, stained with blood. This patient of his is alive to this day. Zbigniew Religa conducted the first successful heart transplantat in Poland in 1986 and eventually created a team in the southern city of Zabrze, which operated 5,000 patients annually. Later in life, he turned to politics, and though his successes on this scene could not be compared with his achievements as a surgeon, he remained a distinguished personality. In the spring of 2007, Zbigniew Religa announced in public that he had lung cancer. An atheist, he told Poles in his last interview that nothing much will happen when he dies, that he will simply cease to exist, writes Przekrój.