Wałęsa defends Jaruzelski, the leftist opposition gains in power and a wonderful woman who won the first Olympic gold for Poland eighty years ago.
Press reviewed by Michal Kubicki
Most papers devote much space to a trial of general Wojciech Jaruzelski accused of ordering a massacre of workers on the Baltic coast in December 1970. The focus is on the testimony offered in the court by former president and Solidarity founder Lech Wałęsa. POLSKA comments on Wałęsa’s testimony under the headline ‘Lech’s leniency for Wojciech’. He offered Jaruzelski his hand ‘like a corporal to a general’ and told the court that decisions were taken by the communist party bosses at the time whereas Jaruzelski served as defense minister during the workers’ revolt. ‘It is a pity that a man who became a legend of Poland’s modern history now gives credibility to the leaders of communist Poland’, POLSKA writes in an editorial. GAZETA WYBORCZA quotes Jaruzelski’s defence lawyer as saying: ‘from the point of view of the defense, Wałęsa’s testimony is excellent.’
According to RZECZPOSPOLITA, the post-communist left is back in the premier league in Polish politics after it joined hands with the conservatives to approve the presidential veto of the government’s public media legislation. Its newly-elected leader Napieralski, whose party enjoys single-digit support from the electorate, negotiated as an equal partner with the president, speaker of parliament and prime minister. The daily describes the current political situation in Poland as follows: the two biggest parties: the prime minister’s Civic Platform and the conservatives, both rooted in Solidarity, are locked in deadly combat and have to look to the post-communists for support. ‘One cannot imagine what the outcome of such a strategy could be,’ RZECZPOSPOLITA concludes.
All the dailies write about the events commemorating the Warsaw Rising which broke out on 1 August 1944. POLSKA welcomes the fact that this year the anniversary celebrations are not confined to the Polish capital. Their motto is ‘Warsaw 44. A Battle for Poland’ to highlight that the goal of the rising was not solely to liberate Warsaw. It was the last war’s last dramatic episode in the struggle for Poland’s independence and freedom.
On its sports pages RZECZPOSPOLITA runs a profile of Halina Konopacka, discus gold medalist at the Amsterdam Games 80 years ago. One of the most colourful personalities in the history of Polish athletics, she married a cabinet minister, continued her sporting career as a tennis player, served on the board of the Polish Olympic Committee, knew several languages and was a talented poet and painter. She died in Florida in 1989, at the age of 89. RZECZPOSPOLITA describes Konopacka as a figure from the long-gone period when sport was treated as a romantic adventure. ‘My love for sport,’ she wrote, ‘came from the most noble source, the joy of life itself.’. The story’s headline is ‘Poland’s first and most beautiful gold.’