Word: walesa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...this week, among them Zbigniew Bujak, leader of the Solidarity underground who was captured in May after hiding out for 4 1/2 years, and Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, another well-known opposition figure, who was serving a three-year sentence for trying to organize a general strike. Said Solidarity Founder Lech Walesa: "I am happy about...
Whatever the rationale, opposition leaders were pleased but skeptical. Bujak, in a post-release interview, called the step "really significant," but noted that "no other steps were made and there is no chance for any kind of legal opposition." Said Walesa: "In order to have time to repaint the prisons, conditions must be created for people to join in working for the country. + Pluralism of social organizations is indispensable in order for reforms to progress...
...face before the congress. Solidarity, perhaps the greatest threat to Communist rule in the East bloc since Czechoslovakia's uprising in 1968, had at last been all but crushed after the capture two weeks earlier of Zbigniew Bujak, the underground's mastermind. Former leaders who are free, like Lech Walesa, the sturdy electrician from Gdansk, have withdrawn from public life. Partly because of Solidarity's collapse, the Catholic Church has resumed its role as the sole counterweight to Jaruzelski's regime...
...Urban hoped to undermine the credibility of the Reagan Administration, his plan backfired. Many Poles, who commonly refer to the President as "Uncle Reagan," directed their anger at the Jaruzelski regime. Solidarity Founder Lech Walesa told reporters that Urban's statements contradicted the Polish regime's previous accounts of the martial-law decision. At the time, Jaruzelski had claimed that military rule was a last-minute response to Solidarity provocation. But by admitting that plans for a crackdown were formulated as early as November, Walesa charged last week, Urban lent credence to the "Solidarity conviction that (martial law) was premeditated...
Presumably, the regime of General Wojciech Jaruzelski had hoped that it could intimidate Walesa and his followers. But the Warsaw government backtracked when it became clear that the trial was turning out more absurd than intimidating. Invited by the judge to find an amicable solution, the state prosecutor offered to withdraw the charges if Walesa would make a statement that satisfied the commission members. Responded Walesa: "I had no intention of humiliating anyone." With that, the case was dismissed. Walesa noted that the compromise outcome was a "sign of hope...