Word: warsaw
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...whereas it took five Warsaw Pact armies to end the Prague Spring, the Polish August was frozen by the pride of the nation, by the sons and brothers of Solidarity members. The Polish army was the last official institution with any popular trust. That is finished now. Even the cowed population of Warsaw openly shows its hatred. Obscene gestures are made at passing armored columns. The Poles have taken the acronym of the ruling military council WRON, and added an A to produce WRONA, crow in Polish. "Crow" was what Poles called the Gestapo during the Nazi occupation, after...
Most of the young conscripts who stand guard at every significant intersection in Warsaw attempt to be pleasant. They seem overjoyed when an occasional passer-by stops to chat as they stand next to their coal-fired braziers warming themselves against the freezing temperatures of one of Poland's coldest and snowiest Decembers in years. But they are easily angered when people mutter that "all the coal goes to the army...
...army strong enough? The consensus in Warsaw: not for the long haul. In physical terms, the army and the other security forces are stretched to the limit. Said one Western diplomat, "There is not one unit or piece of equipment in reserve." Most soldiers are on 18-hr, shifts. The army is not being used to suppress strikes or break up demonstrations. A tank may be used to burst through a factory gate or fire a warning shot, but it is the militia (police) who are left to do the dirty work...
Some 500 Western banks and the Polish government last week were playing a multibillion-dollar game of financial chicken. On the one side, some American and European financiers contemplated seizing Polish bank accounts, ships or airliners if the Warsaw government fails to make a $500 million interest payment by the end of the year. If just one of the banks started to grab Polish assets, it could set off a dash for cash that would threaten the stability of international banking by calling down an avalanche of lawsuits, tightening credit around the world, and perhaps causing some financial failures...
...their own making. Poland's foreign debt rose spectacularly throughout the 1970s, while the country's industrial growth rate slowed during the decade. As Poland's centrally planned economy began to sink into chaos, European and American bankers nonetheless continued to lend money to the Warsaw government, prompted in part by the desire of Western governments to maintain the spirit of detente...