Lech Walesa has explained to Polish Radio why he will not be attending the 1980 August Agreements anniversary celebrations in Gdansk today and why it’s time for Solidarity to become a social movement, not a trade union.
The former president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who led the Solidarity movement during the August Agreements which gave concessions to the workers’ earlier demands, decided not to go to the any of the ceremonies in a number of Baltic ports including Szczecin, Gdynia and Gdansk.
Speaking to Polish Radio Tuesday morning, Walesa said that Solidarity should “pack up its banners,” criticising that the trade union has become far too politicised.
“Poland needs Solidarity […] as a social movement, not as a trade union,” Walesa underlined.
In an interview with Polska The Times, the former Solidarity leader added that “the role of the [Solidarity] trade unions is not to my liking! […] I don’t feel like celebrating…”
Earlier, the former Solidarity leader wrote on his blog over the weekend that he was tired and his “health was not good”. However, many believe that it was his disagreements with the present day Solidarity leadership that was responsible for him not being at the congress, held yesterday in Gdynia.
Furthermore the former leader will not be present at the Gdansk celebrations billed for today, Tuesday. “I won’t attend, because I don’t have the power to change a few things, and I don’t want to make a scene,” Walesa told Polska The Times.
Court verdict
Lech Walesa is not only worried about the leadership of the Solidarity trade union, however. The former president is awaiting an impending court decision after a case Walesa brought against activist and journalist Krzysztof Wyszkowski, who accuses Walesa of being a communist agent codenamed ‘Bolek’, a hypothesis also put forward in a controversial book published about the Solidarity leader in 2008.
Walesa with PM Tusk in Gdansk, Sunday. Photo - PAP“I know my merits,” he says. “I know that it was me who led the fight for Poland, but is justice always on the right side?,” he said, wondering “was [the fight for Poland’s freedom] worth it?”
Conflict
Walesa came into conflict with the Solidarity trade union during his term of office as president of Poland in the first half of the 1990s, when the shock economic therapy post-1989 put thousands out of work. Tensions were already noticeable following the Round Table talks of 1989 when many in the movement thought Walesa made too many compromises with the communist leadership.
Conflicts with leading members of the old Solidarity movement, including Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, led to Walesa gradually severing his links with the trade union.
Walesa has complained that the modern day Solidarity movement - which he quit in 2006 - has become increasingly political, backing the interests of Kaczynski’s Law and Justice party.
Celebrations
Celebrations in Gdansk of the historic August Agreements, which legalised an independent trade union for the first time in the history of the communist bloc, will get underway at 14.00 CET today.
After a mass is held a plaque to Father Henryk Jankowski, who died in July, will be unveiled. Father Jankowski is best remembered for blessing the the Monument to Fallen Shipyard Workers at the then Lenin Shipyard in December 1980, one of 21 demands the Solidarity trade union went on strike over 30 years ago. (jb/pg)
Related stories:
Solidarity - 30 years on , polishradio.pl 30.08.2010
Thirty years after , polishradio.pl 30.08.2010
A tour of the Gdansk shipyard , polishradio.pl 27.08.2010
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