Declare an amnesty, Walesa tells massacre trial

SOLIDARITY hero Lech Walesa has called for an amnesty for former communists on trial for their involvement in a 1970 massacre of shipyard strikers in Poland.

The 68-year-old made the plea as a witness in the prosecution of General Wojciech Jaruzelski, 88, Poland’s last Communist leader, and former deputy prime minister Stanislaw Kociolek, 68.

Forty-four people died and more than 1,000 were wounded when troops fired on the workers at the port of Gydnia. Walesa, then a shipyard electrician, was caught up in the violence.

“It was bad then, but now we have a free country,” said Mr Walesa in court. “It’s difficult to settle [this matter], so let’s go forward and declare – mercifully – an amnesty.

“We should leave this matter in the hands of God.”

Mr Walesa even shook hands with Kociolek, who faces a life sentence, if found guilty.

Jaruzelski was not in court owing to health reasons. The former leader has been plagued by ill health for a number of years, which has delayed frequent attempts to have him tried for alleged crimes committed during the Communist era. Despite Mr Walesa’s willingness to foster reconciliation, many Poles still strive for justice for those killed or jailed by the Soviet-backed regime.

No senior official has ever been convicted of crimes connected to the 1970 massacre, and top communists have also gone unpunished for the shooting dead of nine striking coal miners in December 1981.

Gydnia influenced the rise of Solidarity in the 1980s, which led to the fall of communism and Mr Walesa becoming president of Poland in 1990-5.