Polish Farmers Block Roads in Policy Protest

Farmers blocked hundreds of roads across Poland on Wednesday in a massive protest against government economic policies.

Police said farmers with tractors, harvesters and trucks blocked all major highways and many smaller roads in a two-hour warning action by the Rural Solidarity union, at odds with the Solidarity-led government it helped create.

A source at Rural Solidarity’s Warsaw headquarters said it had authorized up to 500 roadblocks in the 49 provinces. Many farmers staged their own “unofficial” roadblocks, the source added.

Farmers have complained for months that government policies threaten them with bankruptcy because of the removal of subsidies maintained by the former Communist regime and falling demand caused by government anti-inflation measures.

They went ahead with the protest after the government refused guaranteed minimum prices for their produce, saying the cost would be the equivalent of $550 million and would destroy its economic program.

“The protest exceeded all expectations,” said Tadeusz Szymanczak, a union leader. “It was a truly massive action.”

Police made no effort to clear roads as traffic backed up. Some stalled motorists expressed annoyance, but most took the delays in good humor and there were no reports of violence.

“We live in the same country, and we shouldn’t split up into rival groups,” said Andrzej Lenski, a 37-year-old Warsaw goldsmith caught in a traffic jam as he left on a summer vacation.

“There are so many protests now. It’s hard for everybody.”

A woman stalled on the main east-west highway outside Warsaw was more critical. “Why don’t these farmers protest by just washing their cows for once, so we finally get clean milk,” she said.

At Zakroczyn, 20 miles north of Warsaw, a dozen tractors and trucks drove onto the busy Warsaw-Gdansk highway at noon, blocked traffic and strung up banners saying “Farmers Protest” and “Farmers Produce, Government Wastes.”

Police watched casually from a squad car and a jeep despite a warning by Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki last week that roadblocks are illegal and that the state could not stand idly by. Police said they were there to supervise security and see that firetrucks and ambulances got through.