Tadeusz Gawin: Lucznik and His Team Will Fail :: Charter'97 :: News

On September 2 the founder and the first chairman (1988-2000) of the Union of Poles in Belarus Tadeusz Gawin was released. On August 2 he together with others was sentenced to 15 days of arrest for organizing a peaceful protest near the UPB office in Hrodna. On August 12 he was sentenced to 15 days more for an alleged fight with a cell-mate. Many people were looking forward to the release of Gawin. One of the reasons was that they were interested in his evaluation of the congress of the UPB in Vaukavysk. It has been decided at the congress that Jozef Lucznik, a long-time close associate of Tadeusz Gawin, is to become the leader of the UPB. The “BDG” publishes the interview with the former chairman of the UPB Tadeusz Gawin.

- Mr. Gawin, you are not the first oppositionist whose term in prison was extended for allegedly bad behaviour behind bars. What is your version of the events?

- There was no fight. It was a prepared, orchestrated provocation to detain me for 15 days more and prevent me from influencing the results of the congress in Vaukavysk.

- You know Jozef Lucznik very well. To your mind, what could have made him to take the other side and participate in the congress, which is considered a farce prepared by the authorities?

- It’s true, for about 17 years we have been engaged in Polish problems in Belarus, and we started, let’s say, our renaissance. It is very unpleasant for me that he agreed for collaboration with the authorities, that had been doing everything possible that the Polish revival could not develop. (Though he told that the authorities helped us). The example for that is a ban for building Polish schools in Vaukavysk, Navahradak, Lida and so on. You know that more than ten prominent represesnttaives of Polish minority are persecuted, arrested, imprisoned, they are fined. I do not know any national minority in Europe, which representatives suffer from such purposeful repressions. The fact that Lucznik agreed to cooperate with this regime, gave me much pain. It’s a blow.

- Maybe he thinks that it was the only way out for the organization he created not to be liquidated. These threats were heard.

- In his age people are fully formed, and if they have some principles, and I know his principles, they keep to them. He betrayed his principles. I saw a photo of the delegated of that congress, and I could not recognize any person. But I am the founder, and I know faces of many members. It’s a mystery where did they come from at all. What will they save and how could they do that?

- Among the statements of Mr.Lucznik he said that he is open for cooperation with everybody. Are you going to use this invitation?

- I think that nobody of the people who refused to participate in that farce, would come and talk to him. I underline once again that people who surround him are not simply people who prejudiced their reputation. They showed that they have lost honour, dignity, conscience. These people you cannot sit and talk with. They can function only in the system of the current regime. Under a democratic regime they would be forced to escape from the Union.

Lucznik and his team won’t achieve anything. It is for certain. Most of he people (I meet them in the city), even those who respected him, turned back from him. And it’s his tragedy as a chairman elected by the authorities. People cannot be deceived.