Poland marks independence centenary amid tensions
WARSAW: Poles mark a century of independence yesterday amid tensions in the isolated and deeply polarized country over the prominent role that marginal far-right groups gained in shaping the main state parade. Chaos engulfed plans for the state military parade in Warsaw days ahead of the centenary, as far-right groups vowed to use the same route and timing for their controversial annual independence day march. Last year’s edition of that march drew global outrage when some participants displayed racist and anti-immigrant banners and slogans. Its organizers include the National Radical Camp (ONR), a marginal group with roots in an anti-Semitic preWorld War II movement.
In a bid to avoid a similar debacle on the centenary, the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government and allied President Andrzej Duda on Wednesday announced the state military parade, insisting that it had legal priority. But the far-right groups refused to back down after a court overruled a separate ban imposed by the Warsaw mayor citing the risk of violence and hate speech. The PiS government spent Friday in a tug of war with far-right groups over the scheduling of the two events. The sides confirmed late Friday that they would coincide.
Drawing a “clear red line between patriotic behavior and nationalistic or chauvinistic (behavior), or neoNazis,” PiS Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has vowed to act “decisively” against publicly displayed
fascist symbols or slogans, something that is illegal in Poland. The US, Canadian and Ukrainian embassies issued warnings about the possibility of violence in connection with the march, while many Poles have expressed dismay. “When the Polish government has to negotiate with far-right groups on the centenary it shows the weakness of the state,” Wojciech, a 67year-old Warsaw cabbie who declined to provide his surname, said yesterday. “It’s very sad and disappointing,” he said.
Collision course Underscoring Poland’s growing isolation in the European Union since the PiS took office in 2015, no senior delegations from fellow EU states are due to show up for the centenary coinciding with the Armistice that ended World War I. The government has put Poland on a collision course with the EU by introducing a string of controversial judicial reforms that Brussels has warned pose a threat to judicial independence, the rule of law and ultimately to democracy.
EU President Donald Tusk, a former liberal Polish prime minister, was the bloc’s only senior representative in Warsaw yesterday and his visit comes amid speculation that he may return to run for president in 2020. “Forgive us Poland...we love you!” Tusk said urging national unity yesterday, remarking that Poles “sometimes argue too much” about their country as he laid flowers at the statue of independence leader Marshal Jozef Pilsudski in Warsaw.
Speaking on Saturday, Tusk likened the PiS to “contemporary Bolsheviks” who must be “defeated”. He also repeated a warning that the PiS could unwittingly unleash a “Polexit” from the EU despite its strong popularity among Poles and the many assurances of PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski that his party has no such designs. Widely regarded as Poland’s de facto powerbroker, Kaczynski has played a key role behind the scenes in shaping domestic and foreign policy. He and Tusk are arch-rivals. —AFP