WARSAW—Fifteen communist-era policemen were found guilty by a Polish court last Thursday, May 31, of firing on striking coal miners in south-western Poland in 1981.
The killings were the bloodiest single incident of the 20-month Polish communist crackdown commonly called martial law. On December 16, 1981, "Zomo" special forces police killed nine and wounded 25 Solidarity trade union members at the Wujek and Manifest Lipcowy coal mines near Katowice, Poland, three days after martial law began.
Zomo platoon chief Romuald Cieslak ordered his troops to open fire on protestors and did not issue a cease-fire, ruled the court. Cieslak received the harshest sentence, 11 years in prison. Fourteen Zomo police received sentences ranging from 2.5 to 3 years, one official was acquitted, and another's trial was discontinued.
Court observers spontaneously broke into the Polish national anthem when the guilty verdict was handed down. Two previous trials spanning over 10 years had proved inconclusive due to a lack of evidence.
However, long-time Solidarity activist Anna Walentynowicz, who received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom on behalf of Solidarity in 2005, believes that key figures have escaped responsibility.
Fresh out of jail for her activism in 1983, Walentynowicz found herself in prison again in December of that year for erecting a plaque to commemorate the deaths of the nine miners.
"This is not a satisfactory verdict… the ones that are the most to blame were not punished," she told The Epoch Times. Walentynowicz believes that then-Polish communist leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski and other top leaders of the time should also be tried.
"They were the ones that organized martial law. They are the ones that ordered the shooting. They are the ones that are the most responsible, and they should be demoted to the rank of private and stand accused with the soldiers that did the actual shooting," she said.
The lead judge in the case, Monika Sliwinska, similarly noted there was "no accountability" among the people responsible for organizing martial law, in a televised statement.
The Polish communist regime also actively destroyed evidence related to the case, the court found, making it difficult to establish which leaders were directly involved in the incident.
The Wujek mine incident became a symbol of the brutality of martial law in the 1980's. Jaruzelski is currently facing criminal charges for launching the crackdown, which was aimed at crushing the Solidarity trade union, at the time the only free trade union in all of communist Europe.
Led by Jaruzelski, communist security forces caused over 100 known deaths during that period.
However, Solidarity ended up contributing strongly to the fall of communism in central and eastern Europe in 1989.
"I conclude with regret that this process [of the trial]… did not bring complete satisfaction or a sense of justice to our society, as it is likely that all of the mechanisms and decisions that were made… will never be completely known." said Judge Sliwinska.
But film director Kazimierz Kutz, who produced a documentary on the incident, believes that the overall effect of the outcome is positive. "This is good news for Polish society, good news for the public sense of justice," he told Reuters.
Feeds