Poland New Threats

It was no ordinary group that gathered secretly in a Gdansk apartment last week. Sitting alongside former Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa were other prominent activists of the banned trade union, which has called for a nationwide 15-minute strike on Feb. 28 to protest a proposed increase in food prices. Among those present: Bogdan Lis of Gdansk, Adam Michnik of Warsaw and Wladyslaw Frasyniuk of Wroclaw.

Thirty minutes after the meeting began, policemen burst into the room. Walesa and Activist Jerzy Trzcinski were allowed to go home; Lis, Michnik and Frasyniuk were put under arrest by the Gdansk prosecutor’s office. In all, seven men were charged with attending an illegal meeting. On Saturday, Walesa was summoned to the same prosecutor’s office for questioning. After 90 minutes he emerged to say that he had refused to respond to the grilling. Walesa was warned that he too would face charges if he continued to back the proposed strike action. His defiant reply: “Our most important task is to bring about our action effectively.”

The Gdansk raid came at a sensitive moment for the regime of General Wojciech , Jaruzelski. A week earlier, four Interior Ministry officials had been sentenced by a Toruan court to jail terms ranging from 14 to 25 years for their role in the abduction and murder last October of a pro-Solidarity Roman Catholic priest, Father Jerzy Popieluszko. The trial discredited the state security apparatus and suggested the possibility of a plot by Communist hard- liners against Jaruzelski’s leadership. As a result, the authorities seemed more intent than ever on containing their opponents.

One target is the overwhelmingly popular Roman Catholic Church. Said Religious Affairs Minister Adam Lopatka: “The authorities’ error was that Popieluszko was not imprisoned long ago.” Henceforth, Lopatka said, any priest who “deserves it will certainly be arrested.” Government Spokesman Jerzy Urban suggested that a dozen priests had made statements worthy of investigation.

Urban drew special attention to Warsaw’s Father Stanislaw Malkowski, 40, who is well known for his antigovernment blasts. Malkowski was described by one of the Toruan defendants as the initial target of the Popieluszko operation. Since then, Malkowski’s outbursts have become even more virulent. “Today’s empire of evil,” he said recently, “is the country of the red dragon, the Communist state.”

The regime’s attempts to intimidate the clergy stirred Primate Jozef Cardinal Glemp to declare last week that the church would “defend priests.” The government’s latest attacks, he said, “point to ideological struggle.” Voicing even such restrained criticism was a departure for Glemp, who is widely considered by Poles to be too conciliatory toward the regime.

As it tightened the reins on critics, the government purged the Interior Ministry. Government Spokesman Urban said that General Zenon Platek, the immediate superior of the four men convicted at Toruan, would remain suspended from duty and that his department would be broken up. Urban announced the suspension of Warsaw Police Colonel Leszek Wolski, who had allegedly known in advance of the Popieluszko plot.

Jaruzelski, meantime, left Warsaw for a state visit to India, his first trip outside the Communist bloc since coming to power in 1981. But his hopes for a diplomatic coup were set back when Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi reportedly questioned the general on the alleged involvement of a Polish agent in an espionage scandal that has rocked New Delhi in recent weeks. His government would investigate the charge, Jaruzelski told a New Delhi press conference. Said he: “I do not have to provide any public explanation.”