What's on in Poland

international | anti-capitalism | news report

Wednesday April 28, 2004 01:10

by Robert Looby

Anti-summit chased from venues while EEF goes ahead behind police lines

This is a (hurried) summary and translation of what I’ve picked up from indymedia Poland and some mainstream Polish press (i.e. web) coverage for the benefit of non-Polish speakers, though some of the http://poland.indymedia.org/pl articles have English translations too.

The European Economic Summit (a regional meeting of the World Economic Forum) runs from the 28th to the 30th in Warsaw alongside an “anti-summit” organised by alterglobalists, as they are known in Poland. Taking part in the EEF will be leaders from 25 countries and representatives from 700 businesses (estimates run from 900-1200 participants).

The anti-summit’s slogan is “Enough of the globalisation of exploitation, poverty and war: globalise justice” and a demonstration is planned on the 29th in Warsaw. The organisers say the demonstration will be pluralist and peaceful.

While the security operation is described as the biggest in post-Communist Poland’s history, more elaborate preparations were made for the Pope’s visits. Shops have not been ordered to close but many shopkeepers are boarding up their premises with wood. Warsaw has been divided into zones of varying levels of police activity.

Meanwhile the main story in Poland’s leading political magazine “Polityka” (2004, nr. 17) is that the entire Polish party system is in crisis.

Jacek Kuroń has written that the world’s future is in the hands of alterglobalists in an open letter. The elites of power, money and the media often act to disadvantage the societies they lead. He has also said that the American dream has fared disastrously in Poland. This is not his first open letter. In 1964 he co-wrote an open letter to the members of the Polish Communist Party for which he was sentenced to three years in jail. He was one of the most important figures in the early Solidarity and was interned under martial law.

Sound Familiar?

On indymedia Poland (http://poland.indymedia.org/pl) there are reports of unlawful restrictions on travel into the country. But perhaps they are not as bad as Irish authorities. One Czech citizen and long time, legal resident in Poland was prevented from entering the country until it was discovered that his child had Polish citizenship.

Most of the mainstream media is presenting the protestors as hooligans and rioters. One indymedia article talks of “media hysteria” and claims that the managers of the venue for the Alternative Economic Forum reneged on their contract with the anarchist organisers after the publication in Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s leading newspaper, of an article entitled “Anarchy on the Vistula.” The organisers say if they fail to find a venue their forum will go ahead in the open air. Organisers of “A Social Europe Without Borders” which was to take place in the “Praha” cinema have also been left without a venue after the management was paid a visit by the police. Articles refer to the paranoia reigning in Warsaw now. A part of the indymedia team meeting in a park to discuss a print edition for the 28th were “visited” by police who refused to identify themselves by name.

The demonstration on the 29th is supported by, among others, trade unions and Mazowsze Solidarity. There will also be a “Million Marijuana March” on May 1st in support of legalising the marijuana and changing drug policy.

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Comments (3 of 3)

Anti-supermarket activity

Fri Aug 06, 2004 15:20

I don't know of any organised anti-supermarket activity but there is concern over the pay and conditions that the supermarkets can impose on Polish workers (in a depressed labour market) as well as the impact out of town supermarkets have on society in general. The former has been the subject of mainstream newspaper articles, some quite lengthy and detailed.

Tesco

by Tag

Fri Aug 06, 2004 14:39

Perhaps you can help me?

I was just wondering whether there is any anti-supermarket activity going on in Poland, or any calls for boycotts of supermarkets.

There is a lot of this here in Britain, as the supermarkets are widely seen to destroy farming and communities.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3814791.stm

Unless activists in countires like Poland (as well as Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and China) realise this, they could be hit very badly.

It is Tony Blair's fault. He recieves billions of pounds in donations from the supermarkets, and has helped them to grow in many ways.

who made money from the building of nazi death trains

by dunk

Wed Apr 28, 2004 11:47

gin dobry polska

who is Jacek Kuroń?

interesting when mr bush was in auschwitz and he started going on about how we in the international community should never let such attrocities as those that happened in the nazi concentration camps, he failed to say how his family made their money- by selling steel to the nazi`s, untill they were forcibly stopped by the US government of the time

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mir

dunk

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What's on in Poland

Comments (3 of 3)