“I am sorry to everyone who met with some form of injustice or harm. I say this once again,” the 87-year-old general expressed in a statement on Sunday as Poland prepares to commemorate the introduction of the crackdown against the Solidarity trade union on 13 December 1981.
Some 10,000 were interned and approximately 100 killed by security forces, delivering a blow to the emerging Solidarity movement under the leadership of Lech Walesa.
Although the 88 year-old Jaruzelski, recently diagnosed with cancer, reiterated his claim that the action was “a lesser evil” that prevented a Moscow-led invasion, today's politicians in Poland, many of whom are veterans of Solidarity, have voiced reservations.
“I'm in a very awkward situation, because the general is dying and it is difficult to enter into a debate with him,” said presidential advisor Tomasz Nalecz.
“But I think that the more time that passes […] the more obvious it becomes that there was no reason to bring tanks against his people, and that such a decision cannot be justified,” Nalecz said.
Adam Hofman, spokesman for the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, was more forthright in his criticism.
“The place for General Jaruzelski is in the courtroom,” he told Radio ZET.
Marek Siwiec, from the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), a party that was partly formed from the ranks of former communists, was more sympathetic to the general.
“If someone rejects an apology that's his business,” he said, “but I listened to a man who has the right to say something on this occasion.”
Meanwhile, Stanislaw Zelichowski from junior coalition partner the Polish Peasants' Party (PSL) praised the general for making the apology, adding that it was up to historians to evaluate the general's decision in December 1981.
Professor Jerzy Eisler from the state-backed Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) told Polish Radio on Monday that Jaruzelski is trying to avoid responsibility for his actions by calling martial law "a lesser evil."
Eisler argued that the general did exactly what Moscow could have wished for, because he "brought things to order in the name of communism, without a single drop of Soviet blood being shed in Warsaw." (nh/pg)
Source: PAP, IAR