Table of Contents
Grain de sel? No comment mais cette lettre mérite d’être la plus citée possible, donc nous y contribuons modestement
Context
On march 3 Lech Walesa, the former Polish president, Nobel Peace Prize-winner and Solidarity trade union leader who played a leading role in the fall of Communism, signed a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump expressing « horror » at his argument with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy. He posted the text of the letter, which was signed by 39 Polish former political prisoners on Facebook.
The letter
Dear Mr. President,
We watched the report of your conversation with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr
Zelensky with horror and distaste. We consider your expectations regarding showing
respect and gratitude for the material assistance provided by the United States to Ukraine
fighting against Russia to be offensive. Gratitude is due to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who
shed blood in defense of the values of the free world. They are the ones who have been
dying on the front lines for over 11 years in the name of these values and the independence
of their homeland attacked by Putin’s Russia.
We do not understand how the leader of a country that is a symbol of the free world can
not see this.
We were also horrified by the fact that the atmosphere in the Oval Office during this
conversation reminded us of the one we remember well from interrogations by the Security
Service and from the courtrooms in communist courts. Prosecutors and judges,
commissioned by the all-powerful communist political police, also explained to us that they
held all the cards and we held none. They demanded that we cease our activities, arguing
that thousands of innocent people were suffering because of us. They deprived us of our
freedom and civil rights because we refused to cooperate with the authorities and did not
show them gratitude. We are shocked that you treated President Volodymyr Zelensky in a
similar way.
The history of the 20th century shows that every time the United States wanted to maintain
a distance from democratic values and its European allies, it ended in a threat to itself.
President Woodrow Wilson understood this, deciding that the United States would enter
World War I in 1917. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood this, deciding after
the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 that the war in defense of America would be
fought not only in the Pacific, but also in Europe, in alliance with the countries attacked by
the Third Reich.
We remember that without President Ronald Reagan and American financial involvement, it
would not have been possible to bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union empire.
President Reagan was aware that millions of enslaved people were suffering in Soviet Russia
and the countries it conquered, including thousands of political prisoners who paid for their
sacrifice in defense of democratic values with their freedom. His greatness consisted,
among other things, in the fact that he did not hesitate to call the USSR the « Evil Empire »
and gave it a decisive fight. We won, and the monument to President Ronald Reagan stands
today in Warsaw opposite the US Embassy.
Mr. President, material aid – military and financial – cannot be an equivalent for the blood
shed in the name of independence and freedom of Ukraine, Europe, and the entire free
world. Human life is priceless, its value cannot be measured in money. Gratitude is due to
those who make the sacrifice of blood and freedom. For us, the people of “Solidarity”,
former political prisoners of the communist regime serving Soviet Russia, this is obvious.
We appeal for the United States to fulfill the guarantees it gave together with Great Britain
in the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, which explicitly stipulates the obligation to defend
the inviolability of Ukraine’s borders in exchange for its surrender of its nuclear weapons
resources. These guarantees are unconditional: there is not a word there about treating
such assistance as economic exchange.
Lech Wałęsa, former political prisoner, leader of Solidarity, president of the Third Polish
Republic
Marek Beylin, former political prisoner, editor of independent publications
Seweryn Blumsztajn, former political prisoner, member of the Workers’ Defense Committee
Teresa Bogucka, former political prisoner, activist of the democratic opposition and
Solidarity
Grzegorz Boguta, former political prisoner, activist of the democratic opposition,
independent publisher
Marek Borowik, former political prisoner, independent publisher
Bogdan Borusewicz, former political prisoner, leader of the underground Solidarity in
Gdańsk
Zbigniew Bujak, former political prisoner, leader of the underground Solidarity in Warsaw
Władysław Frasyniuk, former political prisoner, leader of the underground Solidarity in
Wrocław
Andrzej Gincburg, former political prisoner, activist of the underground Solidarity
Ryszard Grabarczyk, former political prisoner, activist of Solidarity
Aleksander Janiszewski, former political prisoner, Solidarity activist
Piotr Kapczyński, former political prisoner, democratic opposition activist
Marek Kossakowski, former political prisoner, independent publicist
Krzysztof Król, former political prisoner, independence activist
Jarosław Kurski, former political prisoner, democratic opposition activist
Barbara Labuda, former political prisoner, underground Solidarity activist
Bogdan Lis, former political prisoner, leader of underground Solidarity in Gdańsk
Henryk Majewski, former political prisoner, Solidarity activist
Adam Michnik, former political prisoner, democratic opposition activist, editor of
independent publications
Sławomir Najnigier, former political prisoner, activist