New Criminal Proceedings Against General Wojciech Jaruzelski

Prof. Zbigniew Wiktor

In the beginning of April, 2006, there was a criminal proceeding against General Wojciech Jaruzelski by the Institute of National Remembrance (Institut Pamieci Narodowej – IPN); in Poland this is a court. The public prosecutor of the IPN formulated an indictment, stating that the General had organized and led a criminal gang (rather gangs) of an armed character, and that he had incited the State Council (the Collective of the Chief of State of People’s Poland) to exceed its authority. The indictment made the accusation that the General, with this gang and its criminal activity, had committed a criminal offense against freedom and public order.

General W. Jaruzelski was the Defense Minister of People’s Poland from 1968 to 1985, and from March of 1981 he was Prime Minister, from October of that year the First Secretary of the Polish United Workers Party and from December 13, 1981, the Chairman of the Military Council of National Salvation (WRON). Thereafter from 1985 he was Chairman of the State Council and from July of 1989 to December of 1990, the State President. After 1990 the General was pensioned off, but he did not disappear from public life. The politicians of the right-wing parties brought political and legal accusations against him. He had to appear before the Parliamentary Committee as well as before the court for introducing war conditions as well as for his military responsibility in the Gdansk region in December of 1970, when army units were used for the pacification of the rebellion. The General often sat in the criminal dock, but either he was acquitted or the criminal proceedings concluded without a verdict. This new attempt to bring the General to court uses the article in the penal code that was previously used against terrorists, mafia gangs and other dangerous organized criminal elements.

This is the result of the new relation of forces in Poland after the change in power in the fall of last year. The national church parties want to withdraw from the "Round Table" Agreement and they need a media success. General W. Jaruzelski is the best "target."