Warsaw Watch: Life After Lech
Karatnycky, Adrian
"Warsaw Watch: Life After Lech" by Adrian Karatnycky Life After Lech Lech Walesa, icon of Eastern Europe's anti-Communist revolution, has been defeated in a presidential race by a former Communist youth official...
...Investigative reporters also are revealing corruption, cover-ups, and wrongdoing by the ex-Communists...
...It was in Alganov's apartment that Mikhail Gorbachev's Soviet Communist Party illegally transferred more than one million dollars to help sustain Poland's Communists after the Solidarity movement swept into power in the 1989 elections...
...Inside Poland and without, the man who could help bring the anti-Communist forces together has been pushed to the sidelines...
...The crisis surrounding Oleksy —as well as evidence suggesting there are at least two more highly placed ex-Communists serving as Russian informants — raises questions about the political reliability of many East European leaders...
...officials privately suggest that while NATO expansion may be put on a fast track by the end of the year, Poland can no longer count on being among the first to be allowed into the alliance...
...But the nation's democratic forces could use some help in the form of outside pressure...
...The American Spectator • April 1996 57...
...It also suggests the U.S...
...The Polish news media have been vigorous in their pursuit of the spy story...
...Some U.S...
...The dramatic charges against Oleksy were made in the last days of the Walesa presidency by interior minister Andrzej Milczanowski...
...There are signs President Kwasniewski understands that he must reach out to non-Communists to restore his country's credibility...
...By contrast, when Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke and national security staffer Dan Freed visited Poland in early February, they bluntly explained that Polish authorities must thoroughly vet their security ministries in a non-partisan review if Poland is to secure NATO membership...
...Polls released in late January showed that the ex-Communists would still capture 21 percent of the vote...
...Already, the ex-president is working out of a small office at the headquarters of the Solidarity trade union, which launched his political career...
...On a recent visit to Germany, Polish officials were surprised when no mention was made of the Oleksy affair...
...Now he has been virtually shunned by the West...
...Meanwhile, the deputy interior minister who supervised the investigation of Oleksy has been dismissed and replaced by an Oleksy crony who once specialized in surveillance of anti-Communist groups...
...On February 1, a parliamentary commission examining the conduct of the interior minister and security services concurred...
...Nevertheless, today's Poland does not deserve admission to NATO...
...Some of the prime minister's encounters—which included a hunting excursion and meetings at a Warsaw tennis court—were filmed...
...By contrast, the opposition parties would divide the anti-Communist vote, with 11 percent going to Solidarity, o percent to the center-right Freedom Union, and 9 percent to the nationalist conservative Movement to Rebuild Poland...
...Before a hushed meeting of the Polish Sejm on December 21, Milczanowski declared, "From 1990 to 1995, Mr...
...There are simply too many ex-Communists in key security and foreign policy posts...
...But with the exposure of ex-Communist ties with the intelligence service of the country that dominated Poland, there is some reason to hope for an eventual democratic comeback...
...But Milczanowskitwice jailed for his democratic activism in the 1980's and with deep roots in Solidarity opposition—is regarded as a man of honor and principle and a professional of impeccable integrity not prone to erratic statements...
...should establish rigorous new standards for the entry of these countries into NATO — including a demand that the preponderance of the top positions in the defense and foreign affairs ministries be filled by officials with a longstanding history of pro-Western and anti-Communist views...
...The foreign minister, Andrzej Olechowski, was a brilliant strategic thinker and proponent of free trade...
...Pushed from office by a public uproar, Oleksy has been elected unanimously to head the ruling Social Democracy of Poland, which is twice as popular with Polish voters as the Solidarity movement and other anti-Communist parties...
...The crisis began quietly enough...
...Western Europeans unfortunately appear to be abdicating their responsibilities...
...Alganov, like Oleksy, lived in a posh section of Warsaw known as the Bay of Red Pigs...
...He has done so by naming a number of activists from the underground Solidarity movement of the 1980's to top staff positions...
...Its defense minister, Janusz Onyszkiewicz, a former leader of the Solidarity labor movement, was an eloquent voice for civilian control of the ADRIAN KARATNYCKY is the president of Freedom House...
...WARSAW WATCH by Adrian Karatnycky Life After Lech Lech Walesa, icon of Eastern Europe's anti-Communist revolution, has been defeated in a presidential race by a former Communist youth official who lied about graduating from college...
...While Mikhail Gorbachev—the man who gave us Chernobyl and approved the orders to shoot hundreds of innocent protesters in the Baltic states, Georgia, and Azerbaijan—is showered with Western honors, his preposterous foundation raises millions of dollars to discuss world peace and ecological devastation...
...It concluded there was cause for launching an investigation and leveling charges against the embattled former prime minister...
...Relentless domestic public pressure not only forced the resig- Q nation of 01-eksy, but compelled his ex-Communist successor to remove justice minister Jerzy Jaskiemia, who actively interfered to block investigations of fellow ex-Communists for wrongdoing...
...Poland has come unhitched from its post-Communist moorings...
...Jozef Oleksy held many meetings with foreign intelligence services, during which, with full awareness, he handed over information and documents, including secret ones...
...Even if Oleksy is not a bona fide spy, there is enough evidence to suggest he and his party cronies owed favors to Alganov...
...56 April 199 6 • The American Spectator ry Yakimishin...
...military and NATO expansion...
...Two-thirds of the parliament is in the hands of ex-Communists and their longtime Peasant Party allies...
...The Oleksy affair was uncovered because Poland had divided power, with the ex-Communist left in charge of domestic policy and President Walesa responsible for security and foreign policy...
...It will be hard to ask American soldiers to risk their lives for Poland if people with a Communist past are in charge of Poland's foreign and defense policies...
...Walesa, the man whose courage and resolve brought down Communism, works in the isolation of a small warren in a remote Baltic seaport...
...Milewski, who serves as Poland's national security adviser, makes an almost perverse case for why the ex-Communists will be reliable allies of the U.S.: "They often met with and were regularly humiliated by their imperious Soviet counterparts...
...Alganov was later to become a business partner of Polish Communists, helping them secure lucrative grain deals...
...And Poland's president and new prime minister are former Communist youth leaders...
...Indeed, post-Communist Poland is currently run by a cabal of ex-Communists that has remained remarkably cohesive, while the anti-Communist parties are a shambles—divided into opposing factions, often bickering over trivial policy differences and petty personal rivalries...
...they are garnishing his income for back taxes he owes on the million dollars he received from Warner Brothers for his life story...
...Poland's president was an internationally celebrated hero whose leadership helped bring about the collapse of Communist tyranny...
...When they tailed him to ensure his safety, they discovered the reason for his disappearing act: to hide meetings with known agents of Russian intelligence...
...The country's Prime Minister Jozef Oleksy—accused of handing state secrets to Russia—has resigned, angrily charging he's the victim of a witch-hunt...
...Walesa was roundly criticized for growing increasingly remote from the Polish people and, through his imperiousness, alienating and dividing Poland's democratic forces...
...Amid this crisis, the new president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, has promised to implement a far-reaching policy of /ustracja — opening up review of Poland's incendiary secret police files...
...Nonetheless he did steer the Polish ship of state through five years of dramatic free-market reforms that laid the basis for Europe's fastest growing economy...
...Among these is Jerzy Milewski, who organized the smuggling of AFL-CIO assistance for the Solidamog underground (and whom I interviewed in these pages just days after martial law was declared—see TAS, April 1982...
...The clear majority of Poland's parliament was made up of anti-Communist parties whose leaders had struggled for decades in the underground opposition...
...The foreign minister and his leading aides are ex-Communist functionaries...
...Just two short years ago the nation was a bedrock ally of the West...
...Today, the defense minister is an obscure mediocrity from the Polish Peasants Party, which has strong anti-NATO advocates...
...And he helped preserve stability and respect for individual liberty in a reborn democracy...
...An economist who spent fifteen years in various ideological and administrative posts in the Communist party, Oleksy has angrily called the charges "filthy provocation"aimed at creating "hysteria and an outbreak of hatred...
...Bodyguards assigned to Oleksy when he became speaker in 1993 and prime minister in 1994 grew concerned over his frequent disappearances...
...Walesa's bank accounts and property have been frozen by the country's tax police...
...Denied a pension by the ruling ex-Reds, he has announced his intention to return to work as an electrician at the Gdansk shipyard...
...Poland lost divided government with the election of the ex-Communist Kwasniewski in December...
...They are the last to want a return to such a state of affairs...
...Poland's vibrant private sector now dominates economic life, and the two-million strong Solidarity trade union is ready to act should liberty be at risk...
...They have uncovered a widening web of intrigues linking Polish ex-Communists to their former Soviet patrons...
...Poland's reliable Gazeta Wyborcza reports there were eighteen known meetings with Russian spies Viktor Alganov and GrigoAt this rate, Poland will never be admitted to NATO...
Vol. 29 • April 1996 • No. 4
