Former Polish President threatens to withdraw from public life in protest against collaboration accu

Former Polish President Lech Walesa has announced a partial withdrawal from the public life in protest against a controversial new book, Lech Walesa. Idea and history, which alleges that he has an illegitimate child and he was a Communist secret police spy, Polish Radio reports.

Walesa declares on his blog that he will withdraw from participation in, “all state anniversaries and other celebrations of this kind” and stressed that he may even leave Poland altogether, radio says. “I am not joking,” wrote Walesa and threatened that if the constant attacks on him continue and the “structures of the democratic state” fail to respect court rulings, he will give up all his awards and distinctions. The former Polish President is infuriated by a book by Pawel Zyzak in which the author revises the biography of the Solidarity leader. According to Walesa, the publication is an unjustified attack, “with outrageous, disgusting and barbarous slanders.” Pawel Zyzak is a young historian of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) and alleges that Walesa has an illegitimate child and that he co-operated with the Communist secret police (SB), an accusation that was made by two other IPN historians last year as AIA also reported. The conflict between the former President and the Institute of National Remembrance broke out last year when two IPN historians, Slawomir Cenckiewicz and Piotr Gontarczyk published Secret Services and Lech Walesa. A Contribution to the Biography, presenting evidence that they say shows Walesa had collaborated with SB under the nickname “Bolek” in 1970s, in spite of the fact that in 2002 it was ruled that the former president was not, in fact, a secret agent for the Communists. A special vetting court in 2002 had earlier ruled that Walesa had not been a spy or cooperated with the Communist secret services.

Guest Column——Bio and Archives

Items of notes and interest from the web.