Jaruzelski: I agonized for months
over martial law
By RYAN LUCAS—Thursday, May 28, 2009
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 government 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—that
a 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
(May 28, 2009) 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 position 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
and 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."
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