PPS
leaders
face long
prison
sentences
TWO of the activists arrested during the strike wave that rocked Poland in April and May are still in prison. They are Czeslaw Borowczyk and Jozef Pinior, both leaders of the Polish Socialist Party
Their offence is that they called on the workers at the Dolmel factory in Wroclaw to come out in a solidarity strike on May 5 when they learned of the brutal attack by the Polish police on the strikers at the Lenin steelworks in Nowa Huta. Since then a campaign for their release has been continuing in Poland. Two of their comrades who were arrested at the same time, Jolanta Skiba and Aleksandra Sarata were released at the end of May, after the bishop of Wroclaw intervened with the authorities. But they remain under indictment.
On May 15, the Central Executive Committee of the PPS published an open letter to European socialists. The following are
INCE its founding the Polish
S
Socialist Party has been one of the one of the most harassed of the opposition organizations in Poland. The PPS is a political organization of independent trade unionists It consistently campaigns for a program of defending the basic rights of workers and citizens. It advocates the ideas of democratic socialism, which are attractive for Polish society, for the workers organized in the independent self-managed union Solidarnosc. This is what makes the PPS a danger for the ruling Communist system
In the April and May - days that were "hot" ones for Polish labor - PPS members took part in the protest actions and strikes in the factories and schools. They often played a leading role. One of these actions has served as a pretext for repression against the PPS.
On May 5, on the grounds of the electrical machinery factory Dolmel in Wroclaw, Jozef Pinior, Czeslaw Borowczyk, Jolanta Skiba and Aleksandra Sarata were arrested. They were indicted on the absurd charge of assaulting a factory policeman and jailed for three months. The authorities are now preparing to try them and they risk sentences of several years in prison.
Founding member of the
PPS
Jozef Pinior is one of the main Solidarnosc leaders. Before December 13, 1981, he was a member of the Lower Silesia regional leadership of the union. Later, in the underground Solidarnosc, he was chair of the Lower Silesia Regional Strike Committee (RKS) and a member of Solidarnosc's highest body, the Provisional Coordinating Commission (TKK). He was imprisoned for that.
A founding member of the PPS, he is one of its main leaders. As a socialist and trade-union leader, he has taken part in many protest rallies and actions in the enterprises and the plants. He enjoys a great authority among the workers of Lower Silesia.
Czeslaw Borowczik was chair of the Solidarnosc underground plant committee at Dolmel during the state of war [the military rule proclaimed by Jaruzelski and company on December 13, 1981]. He was imprisoned and later became a public representative of Solidarnosc at Dolmel. He is the unquestionable leader of the workers in this plant. A founding member of the PPS, he is vice-chair of the party's Central Executive Committee (CKW).
Jolanta Skiba is a founding member of the PPS. Formerly an activist in the democratic opposition in Wroclaw, she has been imprisoned several times She is secretary of the PPS's Regional
Committee (OKR)
Aleksandra Sarata is a human rights activist and has been linked to the democratic opposition and the Social Self-Defence Committee KOR since the 1970s. She is a sympathizer of the
The trial that is being prepared against these militants smells of political vengeance against the main PPS leaders. The founding of the PPS on November 15, 1987, set a precedent in
If it survives, it will open up perspectives for the development of socialist parties in these countries....We are certain that European socialists will do all that they can to help our leaders regain their freedom. *