Police, Poles Clash as Pope Steps Up Defiant Rhetoric

About 10,000 supporters of the outlawed Solidarity movement clashed with police in a demonstration here Friday after Pope John Paul II escalated his rhetorical defiance of Poland’s Communist regime at a Mass for shipyard workers.

The demonstrators marched more than two miles toward the center of the city and were met by a wall of Polish riot police officers. After a brief impasse, the truncheon-waving officers waded into the marchers, who had sat down on the pavement to pray.

At least a dozen ambulances were dispatched to the scene. Several demonstrators and at least one policeman were injured. There were no authoritative reports on the number of injuries or on the numbers detained by police.

Witnesses said the police were seen clubbing demonstrators and even some of the bystanders who were among the 1 million worshipers emerging from the outdoor Mass. “Don’t beat your brother, be a Pole,” the protesters yelled at the police.

During the Mass, the Pope repeated his praise of the independent trade union’s ideals and prayed for “the special great heritage of Polish solidarity.” This was John Paul’s first visit as pontiff to Gdansk, the birthplace of Solidarity. On his 1983 pilgrimage to Poland, government authorities refused to let him come here.

The collision between marchers and police climaxed a day during which Gdansk seemed a city under police occupation. From early morning, police and paramilitary units outfitted in riot gear took up strategic and conspicuous positions in public parks, downtown parking lots and alongside major intersections.

‘Day of Prayer’

The demonstrators began their march out of the housing area surrounding the site of the Mass despite a closing word from the Pope that seemed designed to discourage a confrontation with authorities.

“Let this day remain a day of prayer,” the Pontiff said. “Let this prayer be the only expression of what we want to demonstrate. . . . Let nothing disturb the particular nature of our cause.”

The marchers, who included formerly imprisoned Solidarity activist Zbigniew Bujak and others who have come from cities all over Poland, were attempting to reach the monument to Polish shipyard workers killed in food riots here in 1970. The memorial of three towering crosses was built by Solidarity in 1980 at the height of the union’s attempt to reform Poland’s political system.

The Pope himself had visited the monument in a quick, unofficial stop earlier in the day. Police, however, had so completely sealed off the area, just outside the gates of the V.I. Lenin Shipyards, that security personnel easily outnumbered the spectators who waited to see the Pope visit the memorial.

As the demonstrators moved near the approaches to the central city, police rapidly assembled a show of massive force that included scores of water cannon, thousands of officers and special riot squads in full battle dress.

The confrontation was dramatic, the first demonstration of its size that Poland has seen in nearly three years. The marchers, repeatedly chanting the name of the union and its leader, Lech Walesa, stretched nearly a mile down the street. They were led by a banner eight feet high and stretched across a two-lane street that said, in bright red letters, “Solidarnosc,” the Polish word for Solidarity.

Bottles, Stones Hurled

The marchers advanced to the first line of police, paused a few minutes, then pushed around it, only to encounter another police line. Although the demonstrators repeatedly chanted for a “peaceful demonstration,” a few bottles and stones were hurled at the police by supporters of the march who were behind the police lines. One policeman was injured when he was hit by a thrown bottle.

After a few more minutes, the demonstrators sat down and began to pray. At that point, witnesses said, riot police broke into the crowd swinging sticks and clubs.

Witnesses also said that club-wielding plainclothes security policemen chased spectators through yards and surrounding streets.

Within an hour, the last remnants of the demonstration broke up.

The Pope’s Mass, on the fifth day of his pilgrimage to his native land, was held in the center of a vast housing area called Zaspa, the home of Walesa and thousands of other workers from the massive Lenin Shipyards. Walesa was among those who received Communion from the Pope, but he did not demonstrate.

The altar, one of the most dramatic the pontiff has ever spoken from, was designed to suggest the prow of an ancient sailing ship with the figureheads of St. Wojciech, the patron saint of this Baltic seacoast area. A painted sail rose three stories behind the altar and was topped by three crosses, their riggings the red and white banners of Poland and the yellow and white colors of the papacy.

As he has done repeatedly over the past two days, the pontiff again invoked the term solidarity, not specifically as the name of the banned union but as a concept supported by the teachings of the church and as an expression of human rights.

But it was clear he had the union in mind. Workers, the Pope said, have “the right to self-management--a manifestation of which is, among other things, trade unions, independent and self-governing, as it was stressed right here, in Gdansk.”

Hundreds of Solidarity banners bobbed and waved like white caps in the sea of worshipers as the Pope evoked thunderous cheers with a prayer at the end of the mass.

“I pray for you every day in Rome,” said John Paul in the intimate, off-the-cuff manner of a kindly father. “I pray for my motherland and for you workers. I pray for the special great heritage of Polish solidarity.”

Every time the Pope used the term solidarity, the crowd applauded, chanted “Solidarnosc” and sang “Stolat, stolat” (Live 100 years). Hundreds of thousands raised their fingers in the V sign that signifies Solidarity to Poles.

But in cautioning the people not to rush into dangerous demonstrations, John Paul said, “This is long term. You have to look to the future and preserve the force of your spirit and body for the future.”

“We promise!” cried the crowd in unison as if chanting a rehearsed liturgy.

“God reward you,” said the Pope.

In calling for workers’ rights to self-management and to unionize, the pontiff cited the Gdansk Accords, which ended the nationwide strikes in 1980 from which the Solidarity movement emerged.

“The Gdansk Accords will remain in the history of Poland a manifestation of this growing awareness of the working people. . . ,” John Paul said, “and they will remain a task to be fulfilled.”