THE interview below was removed from the 2 issue of newspaper by the state ducted with the police officers who attended the Solidarity congress to appeal for support for their independent union.
WE ARE sons of workers, peasants and employees. we woua ake une o0 ol the police to just be maintaining order and public security, not carrying out tasks useful solely to certain individuals.
Who?
Those who have been blamed for 1956, 1968, 1970 and 1976, when, instead of dealing with the causes of the distubances which had led to the riots, they used our armed force.
Atter all. the interests of society are also ours.
The need to create our own union organisation has been growing up in our ranks for a long time. In TOI example started off September hor:
Gdansk cab driver wearing popular badge: Soviet tanks, no thanks!
Socialist Challenge Solidarity's official censor. It was con1980 at the base of the parbecause most of the police are parorganised meetings that lots of people took part in. At this oTew up demands and sent them to Ministel and Cuillmander of the region.
We never received a reply, and at that time a was started against us. People spat at us. And sometimes in the real sense of the word. reached such a pitch that the police were afraid to go to work in uniform.
That led us not only to defend ourselves but to ank intensivery aboul tne for this public EA hostility. We must make clear to society who we are ano wral we du.
And how has The union as such has only started to develop in ¡USL different regions and without all) ordination. None know anything about each other. „LOOZ aller meeting of discontented police they se up initial commissions to control some of the activites ot the regional commander.
In Katowice they set up per cent or the vote La founding committee for a union. In Cracov the same, and also in Lublin on 29 May.
After that a national meeting was organised by the party police committee that took place on 25 May in Warsaw. Despite the information blackout from the administration egions wer represented commander of the police promised to satisfy severa cenales and he meeting postponed till 1 June.
In the leadership election in Solidarity Walesa received 55 union leader. nis nearest rivar.
Marian Jurczyk, a Catholic union leader from Szczecin received 24 per cent; and two more radical figures within meting took place and all that day the WELC represented, this time by two thousand delegates who brought with them lists of supporters their name, Christian name, grade position place of work and their signatures.
In your opinion how many people did that represent?
Forty two thousand, and it was at that moment that we realised what was hapSolidarity Andrzej Gwiazda from respectivery pening. were elected by the delegates to be the praesidium. We debated all night On 2 June General Jaruzelski appointed governmental commission to negotiate with us led by General Kiszczak. We fixca a new for June and went But the discussions with the Kiszczak commission came to nothing. wanted a real union. They had in mind corporatist representing the Gdansk ~ ano Jar Rulewski from Bydgoszcz received nine and six per cent ordinary police from their officers In the face of our continuing opposition they But they allowed co-ordinate between themselves, and were only allowed local level That wasn't what we wanted so discussions were broken off.
Lo prevent the nexi meeting taking place on 9 JunC all the police wert placed on alert the night before. But still two hundred persons came to the meeting. about occupying the loca but we received inside mation that they were planning use the military police against us if we did.
The general political situation at the time was uncertain, the party congress was approaching and finally received teler trom le nead or lac governmental commissior which guaranteed us im munity Despite that on 17 June they laid us off without any explanation. They forced us to sign a declara tion saying that they would withdraw from the union. Many refused and redoubled their activities How many were laid off?
About 500, they were prepared to pay any price to stop our movement. What were they afraid of?
the first place our desire not to be used as an 'argument' in social conflicts. Also our • wish lave modevencen union and to control our own affairs We want the law to be the same for everybody so that none of our people can be laid off for describ ing some dignitary as dead drunk. Finally we are for socialism, , not centralised but self-managed. There is no justification to the charge that we are anti-socialist.
Socialist Challenge