Could Boomerang on Regime : Effects of Poland’s Police Trial Seen as Long Lasting

The effects of the unprecedented public trial and conviction of four secret police officers for the murder of a popular Roman Catholic priest are likely to influence life in this Communist country for years to come.

Among diplomats, reporters who have followed the case closely and a sampling of Polish intellectuals, there is little doubt that the country’s leader, Premier Wojciech Jaruzelski, won short-term gains from the trial, which helped defuse the potentially explosive public mood triggered by the killing of the outspokenly anti-government priest, Father Jerzy Popieluszko.

But these same sources believe that the trial may also have seriously compromised Jaruzelski’s ties with key elements of Poland’s disparate society--including the powerful Roman Catholic Church, the troublesome, unpredictable political opposition and his own security apparatus, which has been humiliated.

The ultimate effect of these developments is impossible to assess, especially in unpredictable Poland. But for the beleaguered Jaruzelski, the signs are ominous.

The trial’s final stages included some of the strongest attacks against the church ever heard in this staunchly Catholic country and have caused greatly increased tension in the already-difficult relationship between the church and the government.

During the last 10 days of the trial, the church was charged with being subversive, unpatriotic, immoral and responsible, in part, for Popieluszko’s death by condoning political activity by priests.

“It suddenly became a trial of the church and the victim, not of the defendants,” said a respected Polish intellectual who declined to be identified by name.

Exactly who ordered the anti-church rhetoric--which came from both the principal defendant and a public prosecutor, with the apparent complicity of the chief judge--remains unclear.

Moscow’s Order?

Some, who link the attacks on the church with the visit to Warsaw of a high-level Soviet propaganda delegation, argue that the order came from Moscow. Others believe that it may have been part of a deal Jaruzelski struck with Communist Party hard-liners to win approval for the public trial in the first place.

The result of this tactic can only further complicate the church-state dialogue that would be required for any genuine national reconciliation.

The criticism during the trial of the actions of dissident priests appears to have tightened more than ever the bonds between the church and country’s underground political opposition.

If the Popieluszko murder stunned the opposition, which had been dormant, back into action, the trial has helped to concentrate this action solidly behind the church.

In a written appeal late last month, the leadership of Solidarity, the outlawed trade union movement, condemned the courtroom attacks on the church and called on its supporters to defend and provide protection to priests.

“An attack against the church is an attack against our national identity,” declared the appeal, which was signed by Solidarity leader Lech Walesa and underground leaders of the banned union.

In a statement issued after Thursday’s verdict, Walesa also said the trial had failed to erase public fear of government injustice. “We would like to recognize this trial as a sign of the good will of the authorities toward accord, of the advantage of the force of law over the right of force, but new facts occurred which make us doubt it.”

While Jaruzelski’s gamble to expose the secret police to the full glare of press publicity won him a degree of public trust, the revelations that the proceedings uncovered have proven unsettling to many Poles.

Certainly there are few illusions among most Poles either about the ruthlessness of the country’s secret police or its ability to manufacture “accidents” to eliminate or intimidate troublesome opponents. However, to have these assumptions confirmed in brutal detail by secret police officers themselves in open court adds another dimension to the national consciousness.

Mutual Mistrust While government officials have pointed to the trial as a sign of their commitment to the rule of law and police accountability, there is evidence to indicate just the opposite--that it was held only to head off a political crisis and is not likely to be repeated.

Solidarity’s main underground publication in the Warsaw area, Tygodnik Mazowsze, reported earlier this week that the Torun prosecutor recently refused appeals to reopen investigations into five instances of dissidents having been kidnaped by unknown assailants in much the same way that Popieluszko was abducted.

The impact of the trial on the country’s state security apparatus is more difficult to assess, but there are signs that mutual mistrust and resentment now dominate relations between Jaruzelski and one of his most important instruments of power.

The premier has ordered a review of personnel in the Interior Ministry, which controls the secret police, and has yet to relinquish his personal control over the state security network, which he assumed shortly after Popieluszko’s murder.

Revamped security arrangements for Walesa also reflect this mistrust. The popular opposition figure is now escorted by three secret police units, with each unit reportedly ordered to watch the other two as closely as it watches Walesa.

The surprisingly harsh 25-year prison sentence ordered for the most senior of the four accused officers, 47-year old Col. Adam Pietruszka, has been interpreted by some observers as a warning to all high-level officers not to engage in unauthorized action.

Powerful Symbol

Still, the scenes transmitted on national television Thursday evening showing the plot’s principal organizer, Capt. Grzegorz Piotrowski, previously defiant and proud, suddenly broken and sobbing after hearing his sentence, could only intensify any urge for revenge by the secret police, Polish and Western observers believe.

Despite the rare open trial, the convictions and sentences, there seemed to be little feeling that justice has been served among the Poles who gathered Friday at St. Stanislaw Kostka Church in the northern Warsaw suburb where Popieluszko was a parish priest.

Here as elsewhere in Poland, the popular priest has become a powerful symbol of the struggle for democracy and freedom and is far more powerful in death than he was in life.

As in the past, the opponent remains the Communist government. Friday, as every other day, many of those filing past the slain priest’s grave were moved to tears after reading the inscription on its dull gray plaque.

“Patron of Solidarity,” it reads. “Murdered by Interior Ministry officers--members of the party.”