(Jakub Krupa’s post from the GUARDIAN UK on 04 March 2025.)
Lech Wałęsa
expresses ‘horror and distaste’ at Trump’s treatment of Zelenskyy. Ex-Polish leader, who won Nobel prize for
pro-democracy efforts, compares meeting to a communist interrogation.
The former Polish president and Nobel peace prize
winner Lech Wałęsa has signed a letter to Donald Trump expressing “horror and
distaste” at his argument with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in
the White House last week.
The letter, signed by Wałęsa and more than 30 former Polish political prisoners held during the communist era, said Trump and his vice-president’s demands that Zelenskyy show gratitude were “insulting” in the face of the Ukrainian country’s fight for freedom.
The “atmosphere in the Oval Office reminded us of
that which we remember well from interrogations” by Poland’s communist secret
services and regime courts, the signatories said. “The prosecutors and the
judges, working on behalf of the omnipotent Communist party police, also told
us that they held all the cards, and we held none,” they said. “We are shocked
that you treated Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the same way,” they said.
Wałęsa, who won the Nobel peace prize in 1983, led
the pro-democracy Solidarity movement that led to the collapse of communism in
Poland and inspired other countries to shed Moscow’s domination.
He served as democratic Poland’s first popularly
elected president from 1990-95. Other signatories of the letter include Adam
Michnik, Bogdan Lis, Seweryn Blumsztajn and Władysław Frasyniuk.
Walesa’s Letter To Trump
Your Excellency, Mr. President,
We watched your conversation with
President Volodymyr Zelensky with fear and distaste. It is insulting that you
expect Ukraine to show gratitude for U.S. material aid in its fight against
Russia. Gratitude is owed to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who have been
shedding their blood for over 11 years to defend the free world’s values and
their homeland, attacked by Putin’s Russia.
How can the leader of a country
symbolizing the free world fail to recognize this?
The Oval Office atmosphere during this
conversation reminded us of interrogations by the Security Services and
Communist court debates. Back then, prosecutors and judges, acting on behalf of
the communist political police, told us they held all the power while we had
none. They demanded we stop our activities, arguing that innocent people
suffered because of us. They stripped us of our freedoms for refusing to
cooperate or express gratitude for our oppression. We are shocked that
President Zelensky was treated similarly.
History shows that when the U.S. distanced
itself from democratic values and its European allies, it ultimately endangered
itself. President Wilson understood this in 1917 when the U.S. joined World War
I. President Roosevelt knew it after Pearl Harbor in 1941, realizing that
defending America meant fighting in both the Pacific and Europe alongside
nations attacked by the Third Reich.
Without President Reagan and U.S.
financial support, the Soviet empire’s collapse would not have been possible.
Reagan recognized the suffering of millions in Soviet Russia and its conquered
nations, including thousands of political prisoners. His greatness lay in his
unwavering stance, calling the USSR an “Empire of Evil” and confronting it
decisively. We won, and today, his statue stands in Warsaw, facing the U.S.
Embassy.
Mr. President, military and financial aid
cannot be equated with the blood shed for Ukraine’s independence and the
freedom of Europe and the world. Human life is priceless. Gratitude is due to
those who sacrifice their blood and freedom—something self-evident to us,
former political prisoners of the communist regime under Soviet Russia.
We urge the U.S. to uphold the 1994
Budapest Memorandum, which established a direct obligation to defend Ukraine’s
borders in exchange for giving up nuclear weapons. These guarantees are
unconditional—nowhere do they suggest such aid is a mere economic transaction.
Signed,
Lech Wałęsa, former political prisoner,
President of Poland
The US embassy in Warsaw told Reuters that
questions on the letter should be directed to the White House press office,
which did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
