Daniel Pawłowiec
/The author was a minister in Polish government in 2005-2006, a Secretary of State in the Chancellery of the
Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński, and then in 2006-2007, a president of the Office of the Committee for
European Integration and Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs/
Poland - a
country of miracles? (Part II)
Postcommunists and
local gangs are fighting among themselves for power and influence. When
the central
police units successfully fight against organized crime the actual
situation in
Poland is revealed and the fact that the authorities
and criminal gangs are the same people comes out in public.
Starachowice - the "new" Poland in a
nutshell
Starachowicka affair from 2003 involved popular leftist politicians
from party
SLD. The leakage of secret information from the Ministry of the
Interior to people
suspected of criminal contacts was denounced. According to recordings
from the wire-tapping
carried out by the police in March 2003 SLD’s deputy Andrzej Jagiełło
called
SLD councilors in Starachowice and referring to information received
from the
Ministry of Interior deputy Zbigniew Sobotka he warned them about the
planned
arrests. The police was about to capture criminal group operating in
the
Starachowice and local activists, suspected of collaboration with this
group.
The police from Starachowice proved that these activists including the
Mayor of
the City were members of the gang involved in "ordinary" criminal
activities (drugs, prostitution, extortion), the arms trade on a large
scale. The
members of the parliament coming from that province
were suspected of exactly the same
crimes. Much dangerous criminal turned out to be a vice minister of
Ministry of
Interior, who supervised the work of police. The special group fighting
against
organized crime managed to infiltrate into the gang and had in
Starachowice a
secret police agent. The vice minister denouncing police action to
criminals by
linked to him parliamentarians exposed the under cover officer to
mortal
danger. On January 24, 2005 in Kielce District Court issued a ruling
declaring the defendants Zbigniew Sobotka, Henryk Długosz and Andrzej
Jagiełło
guilty and sentenced penalties: Zbigniew Sobotka - 3.5 years of
imprisonment, 5
years of the ban on the administrative functions requiring access to
classified
materials, Henryk Długosz - 2 years of imprisonment, Andrzej Jagiełło -
1.5
years of imprisonment. Unfortunately on December 16, 2005 President of the Republic of Poland Aleksander Kwaśniewski applied to Sobotka the right of grace, by
reducing the sentence of imprisonment to one year with conditional
suspension
of execution for 2 years. As a result, Zbigniew Sobotka did not suffer
any
liability (but much less guilty deputies
did). Z. Sobotka was released as a informer and a regular collaborator
of the STASI,
famous secret police of communist East Germany. STASI was known for the cruelty and the serious
penetration of West
Germany.
Reverend Glauk dealing with liquidation
and archives of former communist
secret service after the reunification of Germany
revealed that Sobotka was a sneak. Glauk was
amazed that the Polish government was not at all interested in getting
a
complete list of STASI agents operating in Poland.
Criminal affairs involving the highest
officials
It is worth of recalling that from the very start of
the transformation communists in Poland
have carried out a number of shocking swindles,
e.g. the Moscow loan. The most important people in the
country, the highest ranked dignitaries of the state behaved like
common
criminals.
In autumn 1989 Mieczysław
Rakowski, Poland's
last communist prime minister, called Moscow and asked
Mikhail Gorbachev for a loan for Polish
United Worker’s Party (PUWP). In January 1990 they signed a "credit
agreement" on the sum of 500 old million zlotys and 1 million 232
thousand
dollars. "Moscow loan" is a part of the formation of postcommunist
Polish party and mafia’s structures. The money brought in three bags by
Vladimir
Wierszynin (real name Silwiestrow), high-ranking KGB officer, Vitaly
Swietłow,
the head of the Polish section of the Central Committee of Communist
Party of
the Soviet Union (CPSU). Rakowski kept the whole matter in a secret.
Officially
Soviet money was to be allocated to finance the XI Congress of PUWP and
the
create a new "left-wing Party of Poland." Taking a loan by Polish
communists
was a criminal act. For such a high loan from abroad was required a
consent
given by the President of National Polish Bank t.
The alcohol affair is
the first so-called economic affair on the higher level because of the
big
state budget losses. This is the only well-known case examined by the
parliamentary
commission. The public outrage was so great that even postcommunists
were
unable to block the creation of this committee. It began with an
innocent change
in regulations introduced in the days of the last communist government
of M. Rakowski, which allowed duty free
import of
alcohol to Poland for people’s own use. Duty free vodka flooded Poland.
Therefore, the first "non-communist"
government in 1990 issued a regulation aimed at blocking the entry of
duty free
alcohol to Poland. Meanwhile, Leszek Balcerowicz, Vice Prime Minister and
Minister of
Finance in the government responsible for economic affairs tampered
with that document adding one sentence to
the text previously
consulted to other departments: "This regulation does not apply to
foreign
entities". Some people knew about the change much earlier than the rest
of
society and just before the time "zero" their trucks loaded with tons
of liquor, for non-commercial market, or to "private" consumption had
been waiting near the Polish borders. The nomenclature’s memebers
opened companies
in tax havens including Bermuda
Islands, Malta
and Cyprus. After the entry into force of the new
regulation, they started immediately to bring to Poland
gigantic quantities of alcohol without any
foreign customs as "foreign bodies". Losses of treasury had to be
counted in the hundreds of millions of new zlotys. Amazed customs
authorities
set up a special register and at least wrote down who imports what and
how
much. Then Prime Minister subordinated Main Customs Office to the
Minister of
Finance (previously was subject to Ministry of Interior) and the
register mysteriously
disappeared. Foreign media, including the U.S.,
created image for Leszek Balcerowicz. He was
said to be an enlightened economist, liberal reformer. In fact, he was
an
ordinary communist party activist, a lecturer at the Communist Party’s
schools,
a common criminal. The alcohol affair ended in the Court of State. Here
the
communists won because they controlled the legal profession. Among the
460
deputies were few courageous people. However the Court sentenced the
deputies
who had the courage to testify, that the Minister of Finance
Balcerowicz falsified
the Regulation and acquitted Balcerowicz!
The oilgate
Fuel affair from1991
(one of the threads of so-called fuel mafia) was another way to earn
quick
money for most influential people in the country. The oil was illegally
transferred into Poland (more specifically a low-cost heating oil - of course
without any
customs, duties and fees; Polish law requires at the border of the
state a
special fee called excise) and provided mafia military harbors for a
fuel
fabrication. The affair began in the spring of 1991 and lasted at least
6
months. Shipments of oil were handled at the harbor of Hel. The
fuel was pumped by sailors and soldiers from
the Border Protection Forces. Then the shipments went to refineries in
Czechowice-Dziedzice and after being processed into diesel were
distributed to
the gas stations. According to the journalists from the “Daily Baltic”
admiral
Romuald Waga was in charge of the whole process. In order to smoothly
transfer the
oil the civil ship could enter the military harbor. The case has not
been
clarified by the Public Prosecutor's Office but it is obvious that
admiral Waga
was not able just by himself to change the law prohibiting civilian
vessels of
other flags to enter the military harbors.
Orlen affair (also known as Orlengate) was described by journalists
from “Gazeta
Wyborcza”. The article was published on April 5, 2004. The case was linked to the detention of the
President of PKN Orlen - Andrzej Modrzejewski on February 7, 2002. In order to clarify the case Polish
Parliament in May 2004 appointed the commission of inquiry. In 2004,
Wieslaw
Kaczmarek revealed in an interview for “Gazeta Wyborcza”, published on
April 2,
that the real purpose of the detention of Orlen’s president was the
demand of
his resignation and thereby blocking worth 14 billion dollars contract
for the
supply of oil. President of PKN Orlen wanted to buy oil at a cheaper
price from
a different the provider. The decision to arrest Modrzejewski was made
in the
office of prime minister during an informal meeting in which next to
Kaczmarek
was attended by Prime Minister Leszek Miller, Minister of Justice
Barbara Piwnik
and the head of Office of the State (UOP) Zbigniew Siemiątkowski.
The propane-butane plot
of the fuel affair is even more interesting, because it shows that the
separate
provisions for trading that fuel let to abuse of state tax revenue from
excise
duties and VAT by any falsification of data about the volume of sales -
again
constructed at the highest levels of government. The Parliament
approved appropriate
changes in the law.
The tip of the iceberg
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Have you ever heard about
Grobelny, the money exchange office
affair, Art
"B", the bridge affair, DT Center, electronic, PZU, J & S,
Rywingate,
plasma, tobacco, Colloseum, transfer ruble, Dochnal lobbyist and deputy
Pęczak
and many, many others? No? And this is still only the tip of the
iceberg. In
each of these cases there are obvious questions about the connections
of
criminals with the highest officials in the country. Who allowed
Grobelny to
operate without a banking license? Why the authorities did not respond?
Who
allowed Bagsik and Gąsiorowski using the
mechanism of oscillator - a robbery of bank funds could have been
prevented by
the simple legislative changes. Why the company founded by two
musicians from Odessa, suddenly became a monopolist on the supply of
oil to Poland, and without their mediation none of
Polish refineries can buy the oil? Why Polish prosecutor's
offices and
courts are not functioning properly?
Mr. Adam Kierczyński was deceived together with about 38 million fellow
countrymen who had to pay for any of these affairs money from their
taxes. Relatively
few people got rich, but it has created a huge hole in Poland's
balance of payments and ruined the economy
of the country! These are the money, which today should be spend on
health services,
social security, retirement benefits, the modernization of the Polish
economy
and social policy.
Few words about Professor Kazimierz
Poznański
Kazimierz Poznański is an outstanding economist, a professor of
economics from
the University of New York. Professor with a Polish and Jewish background
in 2001 published a book: "The Great Swindle. The disaster of Polish
reforms." He assessed that because
of the criminal privatization over the years 1990-1999 the Polish
treasury was
robbed from the amount of 265 billion dollars! This is obviously a
question to
the U.S. court and the U.S.
jury. Is that scale of plundering only possible
in a country ruled by totally criminal elites? Of course, it is not the
most
mysterious part of the economical and political life in Poland.
The murders of honest people e.g. killing the
president of the Supreme Chamber of Control, Mr. Falzman, was not explained till today. What a pity.
Nobody has made a comprehensive valuation of losses, even the frauds in
the
privatization during 2000-2008.
Private memories of the former deputy
The Round Table agreement was a foundation of this system. But what
continues
to maintain such status quo is above all the Polish judicial system.
When I was
a member of the League of Polish Families every Monday in my deputies
office I
talked to Polish citizens who were seeking the support and
understanding. More
than 95 % of all problems with which voters came to me related to the
malfunction of the justice system. I met with trial’s veterans, who
told me
their stories for hours. I remember in particular a case where a person
came to
me with a complaint against his lawyer. That person had a lawsuit, so
in
accordance with the law hired a lawyer to represent his interests.
After
several months the postman handed to that person a validated judicial
ruling. The
man called his lawyer and asked what did it all mean? The attorney
announced
that he had forgotten to send notification of the ruling. Surely you
should know
that after any court judgment, both parties have some time to appeal
from a
judgment and if you fail to do so, the sentence becomes final and no
longer
subjected to further proceedings. The lawyer did not inform his client
about
the court judgment which was made in his case and deprived of all
remedies that
go above, and caused loosing the case in
court. This behavior is subjected to criminal liability. The lawyer
should be
removed from the list of lawyers and until the rest of his live pay
compensation to his client! I wrote immediately a letter to the
Superior
Council of the Bar in Łódź about this case. I was surprised when
I received a short
reply saying that after the explanations of the solicitor the Council
considered that everything is OK. I had examined many cases where
people appealed from a judgment of
District
Prosecutor's Office in Sieradz for the District Prosecutor's Office in
Łódź and they found out that their
case will be
considered again, but by the District Prosecutor's Office in Sieradz.
Do you
remember a similar part of Mr. Adam Kierczyński’s story? Can a judge
consider
the complaint for himself? I remember the one case for compensation.
The man
who won the court process came to me one day. The court adjudged him
damages which
should have been paid by his bailiff. The court executive officer got
the money
from the company's assets, however he did not consider as appropriate
to pay it
to the victim and so he moved to another province. The man tried for
many
months to get a new address of the bailiff, who continued to work
legally but
already in a different place. When my term in the office had ended, the
case
was again in court.
What the minister Ziobro fought with
Polish justice needs two things: scrutiny and input of young cadres.
Lustration
of judges and prosecutors is essential to eliminate all these systems
and connections
that allow on the one hand to destroy fair traders (such as Kluska) and
on the
other hand lead to discontinuing of obvious swindles (such as fuel
affair
in1991). The previous coalition of PiS-LPR-SO tried to change
something in this matter. League of
Polish Families advocated universal lustration of all the people
involved in important
public functions and open access to the files of agents (law ultimately
vetoed
by President Lech Kaczyński). Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro also
tried to
change the prosecution service and judiciary system. During his two
years in
office Zbigniew Ziobro had prepared a number of bills reforming the
judiciary.
The most important was the 24-hour courts that was a cure for many
never-ending
processes at the end of which nobody remembered what was in the
beginning, the
reform of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the creation of a central
division
to combat organized crime along the lines of Central Bureau of
Investigation,
the changes in the code of Criminal Procedure in order to transfer the
more
difficult cases to the district courts from the regional courts, but
also the
computerization of the judiciary and the law on employees of courts and
prosecutor's offices, which raised their standards (including ethical).
He
failed to open the law corporations. Without this last amendment, the
legal
professions are still dominated by communists cliques and clans and
nothing will
ever change! Unfortunately today, League of Polish Families as a result
of a hostile
media propaganda is outside the Parliament and minister Ziobro is being
prosecuted by the Public Prosecutor's Office because of preposterous
allegations.
However, I would be dishonest if I claimed that nothing can be done. Poland
still has got the potential to create a
strong, modern and fair country, where the hardworking people could
succeed. Poland needs a strong, wise, right party, which will carry
out the reform of justice until the end, complete fair lustration
processes and
will punish economical and political swindlers. You can not pour the
fresh wine
into old bottles.
The importance of Mr. Kierczyński’s case
to America’s
welfare
I believe that Mr. Adam Kierczyński made a good decision fully reaching
his
rights by the U.S. court. All Americans of Polish descent, who have invested in
Poland and had been similarly cheated - they should
do the same! Let the public opinion in the U.S.
and American Congress notice that Poland
is not only loyal and stable energy supplier
to the U.S. but above all a guarantee of energy security of Europe as a whole. And
hence - its economic and
political independence! Geothermal Polish resources allow to produce
unlimited
quantities of cheap electricity and almost free heat. The known and
methodologically accurate estimates of geothermal energy resources in
Poland
say that in terms of the so-called tonnes of fuel are at least minimum
130
times greater than the resources of oil and gas under the seabed of the
North
Sea. The resources of natural gas in Poland
will satisfy the whole European needs for that
resource at least for next 130 years.
Russia can regain control in Poland
easily and quickly. Postcommunist politician and
the son of a communist officer in military intelligence, Polish Prime
Minister W.
Cimoszewicz - "voluntarily" signed in Moscow an
agreement, under which Poland
paid the price for Russian natural gas 2.5 times
higher than Germany. The country which has enough of its own natural gas does
not need any
import. By the way, there is one positive aspect in a behavior of the
current Russian
leaders. They demonstrate continuously their aversion and contempt to
Polish
authorities. The great example was president’s Putin attitude to Polish
President
A. Kwaśniewski in Moscow on the occasion of 60th anniversary of the end of World War
II. This
same “Polish” president invited for a well-paid lectures by the U.S.
universities became a “democrat" and
almost moral authority! Like other former communist clown and agent, in
the
past, "Polish" president - Lech Wałęsa.
Wake up America!
Americans, wake up from this nightmare before it is too late, because Russia
can regain control over Poland
without big effort. Russians of course will remove
the postcommunists and replace them with more competent collaborators.
This has
a chance of gaining support of the Poles, who are already fed up with
Wałęsa,
Kwaśniewski, unfair courts and prosecutor's offices. Then it turns out,
who
really won the cold war. Poland's
loss will be only an introduction to the
total energy dependence of Europe from
Russians and Polish postcommunist criminals will betray the U.S.
as the first ones. Whether a bad tree can give
plenty of good fruit?
Daniel Pawłowiec