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Wałęsa backs out of informant debate

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 03.02.2016 12:06
Former president of Poland Lech Wałęsa has backed out of a debate that he had proposed about his alleged cooperation with the communist security services during the 1970s.
Lech Walęsa. Photo: wikimedia commons/Stowarzyszenia SIEMACHALech Walęsa. Photo: wikimedia commons/Stowarzyszenia SIEMACHA

The debate had been due to be hosted this March by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), a state body charged with investigating crimes against Polish citizens during WWII and the ensuing communist era.

Wałesa, who led the Solidarity trade union in the 1980s, had called on IPN to organise the debate, arguing that he had material that would vindicate him once and for all. IPN agreed to the proposal, but Wałęsa has now written on his personal blog that he will not take part, and that he will instead take the institute to court.

Wałęsa reflected that over the years, IPN has undermined “the magnificent victory over communism [that was carried out] under my undisputed leadership from start to finish.”

His alleged cooperation with Poland's security services (SB), under the pseudonym of "Bolek", followed the repression of strikes in Gdańsk and its environs in 1970, which he had taken part in.

He supposedly broke off ties with the SB several years before the landmark 1980 strike at the Gdańsk Shipyard, a protest that led to the birth of the Solidarity trade union and his meteoric rise to international fame. (nh/pk)

tags: Walesa Lech
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