Word: martially
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...December of 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law on Poland, orchestrating a brutal crackdown on the pro-democracy Solidarity trade union movement that eventually saw some 90 people killed, and around 10,000 detained in internment camps. But as Jaruzelski and six other former top officials set out their defense in a criminal trial over their coup and crackdown, many of the former leaders of Solidarity have emerged among the general's staunchest defenders. In a bizarre twist of history, the leaders of the very movement Jaruzelski sought to crush 27 years ago now say he was right...
...lengthy defense statement at the Warsaw regional court, Jaruzelski, who was prime minister at the time as well as the head of the Communist Party, explained his motivation for declaring martial law this way: In 1981, he argued, the Solidarity movement was in the throes of an internal power struggle between radicals and moderates, with Moscow watching closely, having reinforced the Soviet troop contingent stationed in Poland. The Soviets had previously sent troops to crush a popular rebellion in Hungary in 1956, and to brutally destroy a reformist Czech communist regime in 1968, and Jaruzelski was acutely aware...
...political aspirations," the general argued. "Because of the geopolitics, the authorities could not step back. There was a knot which we decided to cut ourselves." The crackdown, however brutal, was a "lesser evil" that spared Poland the a direct Soviet military intervention, he argued. He acknowledged that martial law brought human suffering, for which the general said he "is sorry and takes the responsibility...
...Another former opposition activist, Kazimierz Kutz, now a filmmaker and member of parliament also defends the general. "If not for the martial law," Kutz argues, "there would have been many more victims. Had Solidarity started to fight, the army would have had to use weapons and there would have been a massacre. Jaruzelski prevented a real civil war." Kutz was interned during the martial law and his pregnant wife suffered a miscarriage after having searched prisons to find her husband. Despite his personal tragedy, Kutz can still see merit in the crackdown, which, he says, stopped radicals and allowed moderates...
...sentiments running through Li's film corpus. In Bruce Lee's action movies, the Eurasian outsider fought for no greater cause than himself (the sole exception is 1972's Fist of Fury, in which he battled the cocksure Japanese). Jackie Chan made the action-comedy subgenre his own, reducing martial arts to a form of slapstick. Li, however, has most often played the sober upholder of national pride...