Word: crackdowns
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...crackdown had been harsh, fiercely and unexpectedly harsh. Military authorities rounded up thousands of Solidarity members, dissidents, intellectuals, artists and some 30 former government officials, including ex-Party Boss Edward Gierek. Tanks ringed factories and mines, and soldiers and police used force to clear out resisting workers, leaving at least seven dead and hundreds injured when miners in Katowice fought back with axes and crowbars. The shock was doubly traumatic because in the preceding months Poles had won more freedom than any other nation in the Soviet bloc. The country had developed a thriving
...leaders of the Western world were preoccupied with a common question last week: How should they respond to the Polish government's declaration of martial law and crackdown on the independent trade union movement Solidarity? In a Christmas address to the American people, President Reagan proposed a number of economic sanctions against Poland and one sweeping, symbolic gesture of support. Recalling that the Polish people were demonstrating their opposition to martial law by placing lighted candles in their windows, the President declared he would light a candle in a White House window "as a small but certain beacon...
...Union, but because he was seeking to ward off Soviet intervention. This view was essentially shared by the British government, which believed that the Soviets had pressed Warsaw to crush Solidarity and restore the authority of the Polish government and party, but were not directly involved in Jaruzelski's crackdown. As Eagleburger quickly learned, the Western Europeans were not yet prepared to take concerted action against Poland, though European bankers did decide last week not to lend Poland the additional $350 million it had requested in an effort to stave off bankruptcy...
...flow of information slows to a trickle after the crackdown...
Usually, when a crisis flares, the chief concern of news organizations is getting their reporters and cameramen on the scene. But when the crackdown came in Poland, the Western press faced a different problem. Scores of journalists, including two TIME correspondents, were already inside the country, but they could not get their dispatches out except by subterfuge. Said Los Angeles Times Managing Editor William Thomas: "We've never seen such a complete clampdown on all avenues of information." Added New York Times Foreign News Editor Robert Semple Jr.: "Even in Iran you could always find a telex somewhere...