30 March 2005

Katyn Resolution Adopted
On March 22 the Sejm passed a resolution to mark the 65th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. The resolution commemorates the events of the spring of 1940 when, following an order from top Soviet authorities, the NKVD secret service murdered 22,000 Polish army officers, police and civilian staff interned after the Red Army invaded Poland Sept. 17, 1939. Brought from camps in Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov, among other places, the Polish POWs were summarily executed in the Katyn forest.

Prelate Zdzisław J. Peszkowski, chaplain of the Katyn Families organization and a former prisoner of the Kozielsk camp, thanked the Sejm. “You have voiced the truth that the Polish nation was waiting for,” he said, addressing the Sejm speaker. Peszkowski also read his POW Appeal: “The history of the 20th century was determined by two gruesome systems—fascism, of which Auschwitz-Birkenau is a symbol, and Stalinism, symbolized by Katyn. The Katyn crime, one of the most cruel acts of genocide ordered by Stalin, has never been prosecuted or condemned.”

At a meeting with former prisoners and families of the victims, Sejm Speaker Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz said that “it is Russia’s duty to reveal the whole truth about the Katyn crime.” Cimoszewicz admitted that he did not really understand why it was “easier for Boris Yeltsin’s Russia to acknowledge its responsibility for the Katyn crime than for the Russia of Vladimir Putin to release the names of those who committed this crime.”

The Katyn issue is one of the most serious historic obstacles to the full normalization of Polish-Russian relations. Recently the Russians have refused to share their archival materials on the crime with Polish experts or to classify the Katyn crime as an act of genocide.


■ Who Will Run for President?
Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczyński has declared his intention to run for president in the autumn election. The declaration was made during a Constitutional Convention of his party, Law and Justice (PiS). So far, Kaczyński is the only official candidate. It is known, however, that at least several prominent politicians are preparing for the race to the Presidential Palace.

In the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), there is growing support for the candidacy of Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz. Cimoszewicz himself has avoided any explicit declaration concerning his candidacy. Polish Social Democracy (SDPL) will most probably support their leader Marek Borowski, who has already declared his readiness to represent the SDPL in the election. The League of Polish Families (LPR) will officially announce their candidate at a congress of the party scheduled to take place in late April and early May. The most likely candidature is that of Prof. Maciej Giertych, an LPR European Parliament member.

Samoobrona leader Andrzej Lepper is also preparing for the election along with another likely candidate, Prof. Zbigniew Religa, a well-known surgeon and senator. Donald Tusk will probably be put forward as a candidate from the Civic Platform (PO), the party which now tops popularity ratings. According to Jan Rokita of the PO, the real battle for the presidential post will be between Tusk and Kaczyński.


■ Twins Return Home
Daria and Olga Kołacz, the conjoined twins separated surgically Jan. 3 in the National Guard hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, returned March 22 to their hometown of Janikowo, Kujawy-Pomerania province. The girls’ mother, Wiesława Dąbrowska, who arrived in Janikowo with her daughters in an ambulance, was visibly surprised and moved by the presence of a few hundred residents and a crowd of journalists. On behalf of the Janikowo authorities, Mayor Andrzej Brzeziński gave her the keys to a new three-room apartment with a fully furnished kitchen and bathroom. Earlier, the children and their mother had lived in a Social Self-Help Center in Janikowo.

A month ago, Janikowo councilors unanimously voted to grant the city’s honorary citizenship to the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, who financed the surgery. He is the first foreign person in the city’s history honored in this way. Although the twins are recovering quickly, they will have to undergo long treatment and rehabilitation under the guidance of doctors at the Children’s Memorial Hospital (CZD) in Warsaw. According to Jolanta Jeżewska, the doctor who accompanied the twins during their stay in Riyadh, the first task is to strengthen the girls’ muscles so that they are able to stand on their own.


■ The Media and Politics
The Role of the Media in the State’s Foreign Policy. The Present Day and Future of Public Radio Stations’ External Services is the verbose title of a conference to be held March 31 in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at 6 Foksal St. in Warsaw. The conference is co-organized by the Diplomacy Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Radio Polonia Polish Radio E xternal Service. It will be devoted to possible uses for the media in diplomacy, presenting the Polish viewpoint and shaping the nation’s image through the media, especially those targeting foreign audiences. Participants will present strategic objectives for external public radio services. They will also discuss the opportunities available to foreign radio stations provided by the development of the latest media technologies. The meeting will include lectures delivered by Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Bogusław Zaleski and President of the Polish Brand Institute Mirosław Boruc, mediated by Prof. Roman Kuźniar, the rector of the Diplomacy Academy. A panel discussion featuring representatives of several European radio stations that broadcast for foreign audiences will round out the second part of the conference.


■ A Taste of India
As part of the culmination of the 50th anniversary of the celebration of diplomatic relations between India and Poland, the Indian Embassy, in collaboration with the India Tourism Office as well as the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, is organizing Incredible India Week at the Marriott Hotel from March 30 to April 3. Incredible India Week will showcase Indian food, Indian classical dance as well as a tourism exhibition. For this, two chefs and two famous representatives of the Indian classical dance Kathak are being flown in from India for the event, cooking and performing at the Lila Weneda Restaurant at the Marriott Hotel during this period. A photographic exhibition will be on display at vantage points in the Marriott Hotel.

The two dancers, Swati Sinha and Anuradha Thakur, will also perform at the Mazovian Culture and Art Center in Warsaw on April 1 at 7 p.m.

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