Les funérailles du général Jaruzelski ont eu lieu à Varsovie

L'ex-président Lech Walesa et le président actuel
Komorowski étaient présents à la messe.

TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: Le dernier dirigeant communiste polonais, toujours controversé dans son pays, est inhumé vendredi au cimetière militaire de Varsovie, après une messe à sa mémoire en présence de Lech Walesa.

Le général Wojciech Jaruzelski, dernier dirigeant communiste polonais dont l'action continue à diviser ses compatriotes, est inhumé vendredi au cimetière militaire de Varsovie, après une messe à sa mémoire en présence du président Bronislaw Komorowski et de l'ex-président Lech Walesa.

Célébré à la cathédrale de l'armée, l'office dédié au général, mort dimanche à l'âge de 90 ans, a débuté à 09h00 GMT.Né dans une famille catholique de petite noblesse polonaise, Wojciech Jaruzelski avait adhéré jeune au communisme et il s'est toujours déclaré comme non croyant.

Cependant, treize jours avant sa mort à l'hôpital, il a demandé à un prêtre, «en toute liberté et de façon lucide», de pouvoir se confesser et de recevoir l'extrême onction, a indiqué le curé de la cathédrale, le père Robert Mokrzycki, pour expliquer la tenue de cette messe. » | afp/Newsnet | vendredi 30 mai 2014

Poland and Germany Should Unite, Says Lech Walesa

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Lech Walesa has called for Poland to unite with Germany to form one European state despite the troubled and bloody history between the two countries.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Polish president who played a key role in bringing an end to the Cold War, ushering in Polish independence, said the world needed new ways of organising itself, and the UN and Nato were the "ideas of an old era" and "badly organised".

"We need to expand economic and defence cooperation and other structures to create one state from Poland and Germany in Europe," said the ex-leader of the Solidarity trade union. » | Matthew Day, Warsaw | Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Lech Walesa Accused of Hate Speech after Gay Rights Criticism
THE GUARDIAN: Poland's first democratic-era president said he believed gay people had no right to sit on front benches in parliament


A national committee devoted to fighting hate speech and other crimes in Poland has filed a complaint with prosecutors in Gdansk accusing Lech Walesa of promoting a "propaganda of hate against a sexual minority", after the Nobel peace prize-winner said gay people had no right to a prominent role in politics.

Walesa said in a television interview on Friday that he believed gay people had no right to sit on the front benches in parliament and, if there at all, should sit in the back "or even behind a wall".

"They have to know that they are a minority and adjust to smaller things, and not rise to the greatest heights," he told the private broadcaster TVN during a discussion of gay rights. "A minority should not impose itself on the majority."

Walesa, Poland's first democratic-era president, is a deeply conservative Roman Catholic and a father of eight who has never advocated progressive social views. The democracy he helped create in 1989 from the turmoil of strikes and other protests has, however, been undergoing a profound social transformation in recent years.

A key symbol of the change is a new willingness to tackle gay rights, long a taboo subject. In 2011, voters elected Poland's first openly gay and first transsexual members of parliament. » | Associated Press in Warsaw | Sunday, March 03, 2013

Verwandt »

Friedensnobelpreisträger Walesa will Homosexuelle hinter Mauer verbannen

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Homosexuelle sollen nach Ansicht des früheren polnischen Arbeiterführers Lech Walesa im Parlament in der letzten Reihe sitzen - oder gleich hinter einer Mauer. Der Friedensnobelpreisträger will nicht, dass seine "Kinder und Enkel von dieser Minderheit verwirrt werden".

Warschau - Er ist Friedensnobelpreisträger, doch regelmäßig sorgt der frühere polnische Arbeiterführer Lech Walesa mit seinen Aussagen für Unverständnis. Auch in der Diskussion um Homo-Ehen in Polen hat sich der 69-Jährige eine Entgleisung geleistet. Nach Walesas Meinung sollten homosexuelle Abgeordnete im Parlament in der letzten Reihe sitzen - "und sogar hinter einer Mauer". » | max/dpa | Freitag, 01. März 2013

Lech Walesa: Vaclav Havel 'Great Man, Meritorious Man'
The former Polish president paid tribute to the dissident playwright who was jailed by Communists and then went on to lead the bloodless Velvet Revolution.

Read article here | Sunday, December 18, 2011
Related »

Walesa Expected in Ireland for Libertas Election Rally
IRISH TIMES: CAMPAIGN ADDRESS: SOLIDARITY CO-FOUNDER Lech Walesa is expected to address a Libertas European election event in Ireland in the coming days.

The former Polish president has been attacked as a “disgrace” at home for appearing at Libertas events in Rome and Madrid – for a reported fee of €100,000.

As the European election enters its final phase, Mr Walesa’s reported five-city tour is also likely to include an address in Warsaw. Any such appearance will be a controversial one for the Polish icon many of his countrymen have accused of selling out.

“Lech Walesa is a symbol of peaceful democratic changes in Poland and elsewhere in Europe, our ambassador in the world. And now this ambassador disgraces us,” wrote the influential Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, founded by former Polish dissidents in 1989.

At his second Libertas event, on Wednesday in Madrid, Mr Walesa said he agreed with the Libertas call for a more transparent Europe but that ratifying the Lisbon Treaty was the key to do so. “We must approve Lisbon so that we can change things from inside,” he said. >>> Derek Scally in Berlin | Saturday, May 16, 2009