Word: polish
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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That is the sort of pledge that Archbishop Jozef Glemp, the Polish Primate, has publicly denounced as "unethical." Last week Pope John Paul II also attacked Warsaw's coercive use of loyalty oaths in a strongly worded speech from the Vatican. Said he: "The violation of conscience is a serious injury done to man. It is the most pitiful blow inflicted upon human dignity. It is in a certain sense worse than inflicting physical death...
...Polish soldiers will not fire on Polish workers." That statement, which is widely believed to have been made by General Wojciech Jaruzelski when workers rebelled in 1976, was often cited in the past year by optimistic Poles who believed that their experiment with liberalization would not end in repression and bloodshed. Despite the fact that the clampdown killed 17 people, by the government's admission, Jaruzelski may have remained true to his pledge-at least in a literal sense. Most of the acts of brutality that have been committed in the five weeks since Jaruzelski imposed martial...
...police. Except for the white belts that are worn by the W.S.W. (the Military Security Service assigned to keep an eye on members of Poland's 320,000-strong armed forces), the special troops have almost no distinguishing marks on their uniforms. Explains Tadeusz Nowakowski, a prominent Polish writer now living in Munich: "The leadership knows that Poles like Polish soldiers, so they play a trick on them. Poles never know precisely if they are dealing with the army, the special units or the secret police in uniform...
...most feared and hated of the security forces are the 20,000 to 25,000 troops known as ZOMO, the Polish acronym for motorized police units. They take their orders directly from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In December's crackdown, while the army cordoned off the trouble spots, ZOMO units broke up most of the demonstrations that took place after Jaruzelski imposed martial law. In Gdansk they burst into the Lenin shipyards to end a sit-in by the workers who had launched the independent Solidarity trade union in August 1980. When coal miners in the Wujek...
ZOMO members are often country dwellers, generally poor and with only six to eight years of education. Some are convicted felons. Says a Polish exile: "If someone has a criminal background, the authorities might say, 'Okay, we'll forget that little blemish if you give us a year in ZOMO.' " The selection process is said to favor brawny youths who in some fashion feel alienated from society. ZOMO members are generally kept apart from the people they are being trained to subdue. They live in their own barracks outside major Polish cities and enjoy special privileges, including...