Poland.

[pastir]

Jul 26, 2009 8:09:01 GMT -5 @boris said:

Some years ago you said that for small countries like Croatia Socialism is the best system.

You changed your opinion regarding that?

That couldnt have been me. Probably somebody else said it and you misremembered.

At the time I hadnt made up my mind jet. I wouldnt have put my name behind any ideology. Wether Socialism or something else.

[boris]

Jul 26, 2009 18:48:07 GMT -5 @pastir said:

That couldnt have been me. Probably somebody else said it and you misremembered.

At the time I hadnt made up my mind jet. I wouldnt have put my name behind any ideology. Wether Socialism or something else.

OK.
Someone said that Socialism is better for small nations (like Croatia) and Capitalism for big ones (like Russia and America).

[compu]

to help our slavic brothers rad cossack solution
If we want to take over the government we have to give the people more than promises. We have to guarantee that our government will not dominate the people but serve the people. The guarantee is going to be given in the form of a declaration signed by every member of the government and every state employee stating that if I betray the nation, if I steal from the nation, if I do anything fraudulent knowingly I do Know and accept there will be only one punishment, death. This legal change of government will require a new political party from the people, willing to guarantee honesty in the government. Because of freedom in thinking, there are no innocent bystanders. How many will refuse to vote for a future president willing to guarantee the honesty of government with his life?





Contact: [e-mail]

[pastir]

Jul 30, 2009 5:39:40 GMT -5 compu said:

to help our slavic brothers rad cossack solution
If we want to take over the government we have to give the people more than promises. We have to guarantee that our government will not dominate the people but serve the people. The guarantee is going to be given in the form of a declaration signed by every member of the government and every state employee stating that if I betray the nation, if I steal from the nation, if I do anything fraudulent knowingly I do Know and accept there will be only one punishment, death. This legal change of government will require a new political party from the people, willing to guarantee honesty in the government. Because of freedom in thinking, there are no innocent bystanders. How many will refuse to vote for a future president willing to guarantee the honesty of government with his life?

Might as well kill them all now and save us the paperwok. You know they are not going to keep the promise. ;D

[katolickaanarchia]

RSS
29.07.2009 | Aktualności
Kogo reprezentuje PO?

Już dawno nikt nie zadał tego pytanie! Może nawet nigdy nie padło tak dosłownie. Mija już ponad tydzień, jak Polacy przez kilka bitych (dosłownie) godzin, przekonywali się, że PO nie popiera rodzącej się od 20 lat klasy średniej. Kongres Liberalno-Demokratyczny i jego założyciele, dzisiaj najczęściej milionerzy jak Janusz Lewandowski, przed 20 laty nawoływali Polaków do handlu i biznesu. Zapomnieli tylko dodać, że tylko żartowali. Biznes - owszem - w wydaniu postsowieckim, oligarchicznym przeznaczony był dla nielicznych, tych z branży i z namaszczenia SB i WSW (później WSI). Dla tych naiwnych zostawały łóżka polowe i szczęki. Karty wstępu na bal klasy średniej szybko rozdano, a pozostali mogli podawać paniom bizneswomen i biznesmenom tylko ich drogie płaszcze i kapelusze w ramach działalności gospodarczej.

Kto dalej wierzył Tuskowi, że ciężką pracą można dojść do sukcesów przekonywał się wnet, że mowy tuzów z KL-D, a potem PO, to zwyczajna ściema. Drobni wytwórcy, kupcy, rzemieślnicy szybko się przekonali, że rządy potrafią tak umilić życie pasmem kontroli, postkontroli, kontroli przedwstępnych, bystrych oczek urzędniczek z dziesiątek instytucji ( kontrolnych ), że odechciewało się wszystkiego.

I takim to sposobem PO toruje drogę współczesnemu niewolnictwu administracyjnemu.

20 lipca br. na wybranej grupie udowodniono, że lekko tylko przedzierzgnięty duch „domiarów” z lat stalinowskich ma się całkiem chwacko, o czym mogli przekonać się kupcy z KDT bezpośrednio na swoich plecach, oczach, udach - czyli tam, gdzie pałą i gazem przywaliło bijące serce PO.

A do tych kolegów kupców, którzy jeszcze nie dostali pałą kupcy z KDT mogą zawołać (gnani proroczą wizją): Dzisiaj my, jutro wy!

Nie jest tajemnica, że biznes (przez duże B) w naszym kraju mogła robić rodzinka komunisty, esbeka, geszefciarzy z WSI i jeszcze paru innych służb, niekoniecznie polskich. A Polakom tylko chłam i żadnych większych nadziei na coś większego „choćbyś człowieku od skowronka do sowy ręce urobił”.

Kogo reprezentuje PO? Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz pulchnym paluszkiem wskazując na agencję Zubrzyckiego pokazała, że nie interesują ją dochodzenia w jego sprawie i łapówek, zatem Zybrzycki i jego niezdarni osiłkowie to obiekty westchnień Platformy, a nie kupcy z KDT czy jacyś tam inni - jak to określają usłużne media - „handlarze”. Na niesfornych mamy armię kontrolerów - zdaje się mówić przerażony Tusk. A jak nie to baty! PO reprezentuje, armię tych, którym wciąż się podoba hasło „pogonić prywaciarza” czyli zwolennikami PO są spadkobiercy tych, którzy „ nie orzą, nie sieją, a żniwo zbierają”. Oczywiście nie ponosząc przy tym żadnej odpowiedzialności. W przeciwieństwie do tych, którzy „orzą i sieją”.

PO nie reprezentuje tych, co chcą być odpowiedzialni za siebie. Reprezentuje „onych”.

Gratuluję moim kolegom dziennikarzom prawidłowo i historycznie użytych inwektyw: bandyci, chuligani, warchoły... - jako scyzoryk jestem szczególnie czuły na te warchoły. A, i jestem zawiedziony, że dodano do starego składu tylko „kiboli”, skwapliwie dodając nazwę klubu Legia. Żeby nie było wątpliwości. Moje koleżanki i koledzy po fachu z przykrością zawiadamiam, iż wasi ideologiczni pobratymcy mieli więcej fantazji. O taki Gomułka, ten od chuliganów, albo Gierek, ten od warchołów, to coś! A wy! Tylko „kiboli” wymyśliliście. Towarzysze za was się wstydzą. Nic tylko jeszcze Stefan Niesiołowski może wnieść trochę świeżości w obrzucaniu obelgami. Mistrz. Po prostu mistrz.

[Alek]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wa91S7XyB0

[krakus]

WARSAW, Poland --

Poland is showing economic resilience as its neighbors struggle with deep recessions.

The country of 38 million posted a robust 1.1 percent growth in the second quarter, compared to the same period last year, according to figures released Friday by the Central Statistical Office.

That's not great by pre-recession standards. But it puts Poland, which didn't binge on debt during the credit boom, well ahead of other countries that joined the European Union along with it in 2004.

Companies like Oceanic, which makes cosmetics and skin-care products for people with allergies, are able to rely on spending by consumers who have seen taxes cut and old-age pensions raised.

Dorota Soszynska, who owns the company with her husband Wojciech, says they expect sales to grow about a third this year, chiefly driven by demand at home.

"The time of the crisis is the time when your business is tested," said Soszynska. The company expects to see turnover reach euro44 million ($63 million) this year, up from euro36 million ($52 million) in 2008. "Our business is thriving on customer confidence that we have built over the years," she said.

Soszynska has not laid off any of her 400 employees at the company's facilities in Warsaw and in Sopot, on the Baltic coast, and was able to introduce a costly computer management system and a modern storage facility - investment spending that helps boost other businesses.

For the first quarter, Poland grew 1.9 percent annually - the best in the 27-member European Union, and some analysts even think the country could avoid a recession altogether.

"We are a little bit surprised that Poland has held up this well in the crisis," said Lars Rasmussen, an analyst for Danske Bank in Copenhagen, Denmark. "If Poland manages to survive without a recession in 2009 it will be one of the few countries globally that have avoided a negative GDP."

Neighboring Lithuania, for example, was hit by a staggering 12.3 percent decline in GDP in the second quarter from the previous quarter amid deteriorating public finances and a heavy dependence on external funding. EU members Latvia, Hungary and Romania have resorted to bailouts by the International Monetary Fund.

As a whole, the 27-member EU shrank by 0.3 percent in the second quarter.

Strained public finances and rising unemployment could yet dampen growth in Poland. Still, economists cite several factors that so far have helped the economy keep its head above water. Poland has a large domestic market to maintain consumer demand. It remains a low-cost manufacturing center. Its banks are in better shape than many countries, while its real-estate practices avoided the credit-fueled boom-to-bust narrative that devastated the neighboring Baltics as well as the U.S., Britain and Spain.

Analysts note that Polish consumers and businesses did not rush to use the foreign funding that flowed into the region with EU membership for cheap real-estate loans as those in other countries did. Instead, Poles tended to develop their businesses with domestic resources. Polish banks, too, took fewer risks.

"In the last six years of economic evolution in the Baltics, there was substantial foreign investment into the non-tradeables sector: that is, into construction, real estate, banking. It was not going into manufacturing, or into export-oriented sectors, whereas in Poland more of it was, hence improving Poland's capacity to earn export revenues," said Frank Gill, an analyst with Standard & Poor's.

In Poland, consumer demand has remained fairly stable also because old-age pensions were raised this year and income taxes cut, leaving consumers with more money to spend. The pro-business government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk reduced tax rates to 18 and 32 percent levels, depending on income, from previous levels of 19, 30 and 40 percent.

But more significantly, only 40 percent of Poland's GDP is based on exports, according to the state Central Statistical Office, making it less of a deadly blow when importers of Polish food, furniture and fertilizer fell into recession. By contrast, the Czech Republic and Hungary are nearly twice as dependent on exports.

Sectors still thriving in Poland, where labor costs remain much lower than in the West, include the pharmaceutical and car sectors, said Jacek Adamski, an analyst for the Confederation of Polish Employers.

Italian automaker Fiat SpA, for one, is a major player now in Polish car production sector thanks to a state-of-the-art factory in the southern city of Tychy, which is the sole producer of the Fiat 500 compact. On the downside, though, a Daewoo factory in Warsaw that was selling larger cars to economically battered Ukraine has seen its sales drop 90 percent.

Poland's currency, the zloty, provided a key cushion by falling in value, making exports more competitive abroad. It's a safety valve not independently available to the 16 countries that use the euro, or to the Baltic countries and Bulgaria, which have rigid pegs to the euro.

Still, Poland's economy has slowed considerably since 2008, when it grew 4.9 percent. Economists also worry that trouble is still around the corner, especially because the slowdown and tax cuts have reduced state revenues. In July, the EU ordered Poland to curb its budget deficit, giving it until 2012 to bring the yearly gap between government spending and revenue under the maximum 3 percent of gross domestic product.

[krakus]

Polish Economy to Grow at Least 0.7% This Year

By David McQuaid

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Poland’s economic growth will be at least 0.7 percent this year and will sustain that rate or accelerate in 2010, Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski said.

“GDP growth won’t be less than 0.7 percent in 2009, although we hope for more,” Rostowski said today in comments confirmed by ministry spokeswoman Alina Guzinska by telephone. “In 2010, economic growth will at least match that in 2009.”

The forecast compares with a July government projection of 0.2 percent growth this year and 0.5 percent in 2010.

Poland’s economy expanded by an annual 1.1 percent in the second quarter, according to data published by the Central Statistical Office yesterday. That makes it the European Union’s only eastern member to escape a recession since the credit crisis began.

[TsarSamuil]

Poles divided over Putin's message.



MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Dmitry Babich) - If anyone thought that all Poles were equal in their antagonism towards Russia, it would be enough to spend just one minute listening to the recent speeches by the president and the prime minister to realize that a whole spectrum of opinions exists in Polish society regarding the Soviet Union's role in World War II and Russia's current relations with Poland.

Lech Kaczynski, president of Poland and leader of the conservative party Law and Justice, relied on standard propaganda stereotypes. He said that unlike Russians, Poles had nothing to be ashamed of. Kaczynski recalled the Katyn massacre in which 20,000 Polish officers were killed by Soviet forces, comparing it to the Nazi genocide of the Jews.

These sharp words, although pleasant to many Poles, are half-truths. Moreover, Kaczynski was juggling with facts, far from all of them true.

According to the documents of the Soviet Union's secret police, NKVD, on the Katyn massacre and detainment of Polish officers, published in the Soviet Union in 1989-1991, they were killed not because they were Poles but because they were "class enemies."

Most of the Poles killed at Katyn were professional military and police officers, and only few were intellectuals and members of anti-Communist political parties. Part of the detained Polish workers and peasants were released in 1939-1940 and allowed to return to their homes in the eastern Polish regions, by that time occupied by the Red Army.

I am not trying to justify murder as a Bolshevik method of class struggle, well known to the Russian people. However, the decision to execute Polish officers at Katyn was taken by Stalin and several members of the Communist Party's Politburo secretly even from Soviet people, and therefore differs from the Holocaust, which was preceded by a long, public and shameless anti-Semitic campaign partially supported in many European countries.

Unlike Kaczynski, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a center-right politician and chairman of the Civic Platform party, refrained from comparing the Soviet Union to Nazi Germany, even though he said that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had provoked the war, sticking to the official Polish position.

Relations between Kaczynski and Tusk have been tense, even though they are both rightwing politicians. They also have different attitudes toward Russia.

In Poland, the prime minister is as influential as the president, with the Polish parliament determining the country's policy and the premier making practical decisions after coordinating them with the parliamentary majority.

Since Tusk's party now has a majority in parliament, he carries more political weight than President Kaczynski. The Civic Platform pushed out the Kaczynski brothers' party, Law and Justice, at the 2007 parliamentary election.

Poland's relationships with Russia and Germany deteriorated in 2005-2007, when the country was ruled by the party of Lech Kaczynski and his brother Jaroslaw, then prime minister.

Polish intellectuals and part of the media hoped that the Kaczynskis would direct their hatred only at Russia, but the brothers also unleashed a campaign against the Federation of Expellees (BdV), which represents the interests of the Germans who either fled their homes or were expelled by the Polish and Czech authorities following WWII.

With the exception of the Law and Justice party, other Polish politicians have been positively impressed by Putin's address and his letter to the Poles published in the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza a day before his visit.

On the other hand, the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Adam Michnik, who has a negative attitude to the Kaczynski brothers and their party, does not fully agree with what Putin writes in his letter.

Michnik writes in his response to the Russian premier that it would be wrong to compare the Munich Agreement, even though it was "a fatal mistake made by democratic Europe," to the "joint Hitler-Stalin aggression against Poland."

"This, however, does not diminish our gratitude and admiration for the heroism of the thousands of soldiers of the Red Army who died in Poland fighting Nazi occupiers," Michnik writes.

What is most important, he suggests not to link up historical problems with the current Polish-Russian relations. He also refrains from making doubtful populist statements. Unlike Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, he does not compare the Nord Stream gas pipeline project to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Prime Minister Tusk pursued a comparably mild line during his joint press conference with Putin.

A balanced and pragmatic attitude toward Russia and Russian leaders is gradually developing in Poland. Evidence of this is the fact that the essence of Putin's article has been supported not only by Michnik, but also by such previously anti-Russian politicians as parliament speaker Bronislaw Komorowski and ex-Foreign Minister Adam Rotfeld.

If Vladimir Putin's visit to Poland strengthens this positive trend, the Russian prime minister can consider his mission accomplished.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

[TsarSamuil]

Oh well, maybe now they can move on..

---------

Putin Marks Soviet Massacre of Polish Officers.

nytimes.com

MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin on Wednesday became the first Russian or Soviet leader to join Polish officials in commemorating the anniversary of the murder of thousands of Polish officers by the Soviet Union at the beginning of World War II.

Mr. Putin cast the executions as one tragedy out of many wrought by what he called the Soviet Union’s “totalitarian regime.”

“We bow our heads to those who bravely met death here,” Mr. Putin said at a site in the Katyn forest close to the Russian city of Smolensk, where 70 years ago members of the Soviet secret police executed more than 20,000 Polish officers captured after the Soviet Army invaded Poland in 1939.

“In this ground lay Soviet citizens, burnt in the fire of the Stalinist repression of the 1930s; Polish officers, shot on secret orders; soldiers of the Red Army, executed by the Nazis.”

The circumstances surrounding the massacre have long been a major source of tension between Poland and Russia, and Wednesday’s tribute, held jointly with Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, appears to be the latest step in an effort by both countries to patch up relations.

Germany and the Soviet Union had effectively divided Poland between them as part of the Hitler-Stalin nonaggression pact just before the war began. Only in the waning days of the Soviet Union, half a century later, did Moscow officially acknowledge the country’s role in the Katyn massacre. Earlier, the Soviet government had suppressed all information about the shootings, placing blame on Nazi soldiers.

Mr. Tusk said he hoped the ceremony on Wednesday would be a first step toward reconciling the conflict over the massacre. “I want to believe that the word of truth can bring together two great nations, which have been painfully separated by history,” he said.

Some Russian leaders have continued to deny Soviet responsibility for the murders, even though Russia released archival documents in 1992 showing that Stalin’s Politburo ordered the massacre in March 1940.

Russia’s Communist Party chastised Mr. Putin on Wednesday for “going to Katyn to apologize.” In a statement on its Web site, the party said, “You can apologize as much as you want about the so-called Soviet guilt, but no one can hide the fact of German responsibility for the shootings of Polish soldiers.”

In his remarks on Wednesday, Mr. Putin fell short of issuing an official apology, as some in Poland had hoped. Russia’s failure to declare the killings war crimes and allow Polish historians access to all the documents on the massacre has also rankled many Poles. Mr. Putin did condemn the “cynical lies that have blurred the truth about the Katyn shootings,” adding, however, that “it would also be a lie and manipulation to place the blame for these crimes on the Russian people.”

Russians have been angered by Polish attempts to equate the Katyn murders and other atrocities carried out by Red Army soldiers in Poland during World War II with Nazi crimes.

Russian officials, including Mr. Putin and President Dmitri A. Medvedev, have lashed out at what they consider falsifications of history meant to denigrate the Soviet Union’s role in World War II. Many Russians consider the war a defining moment in their history, in which as many as 25 million Soviet citizens died, according to some estimates.

Still, after years of back-and-forth diplomatic sniping, relations between the erstwhile cold war allies have warmed of late.

Last August in Poland, at an anniversary observing the start of World War II, Mr. Putin praised Polish soldiers and citizens for their bravery in resisting the Nazis. And for the first time Russia has invited Poland to take part in the Victory Day parade on Red Square this year for the 65th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat. Last week, a government-owned television channel showed “Katyn,” an Oscar-nominated film by the Polish director Andrzej Wajda that portrays the massacre and the Soviet cover-up. The film had been screened only a few times in Russia.

Wednesday’s ceremony, held amid the birch and pine trees of the Katyn forest, was pregnant with symbolism and not a little irony. Russian state television showed Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. officer, standing beside his Polish colleague as Russian Orthodox priests intoned prayers for the dead. Russian and Polish soldiers laid wreaths at the base of a towering red Orthodox cross. The short service ended with the playing of the Russian national anthem which, aside from the lyrics, differs little from the former Soviet one.

Judy Dempsey contributed reporting from Berlin.


Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, center, took part in a wreath-laying ceremony in the Katyn forest on Wednesday.

[TsarSamuil]

Vid,
rt.com/Politics/2010-04-07/katyn-poloes-massacre.html

Blame for massacre of Poles cannot be put on Russians – Putin.

RussiaToday.com
07 April, 2010, 18:39

The crimes of Stalin’s regime cannot be justified, Premier Vladimir Putin has said. He added, however, that Russians cannot be blamed for the 1940 massacre in the Katyn forest, where over 20,000 Poles were executed.

"For decades, attempts have been made to cover up the truth about the Katyn executions with cynical lies,” the Russian Prime Minister said, as quoted by RIA Novosti. “However, suggesting that the Russian people are to blame for that is the same kind of lie and fabrication."

On Wednesday, Putin met with his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, in the Russian western city of Smolensk to attend a commemoration service that marked the 70th anniversary of the tragic events. The ceremony took place at a memorial complex erected on a mass grave of victims of Soviet repressions and Polish officers – prisoners of war – killed in Katyn, a forest west of Smolensk.

“This is the first time the Prime Ministers of Russia and Poland have honoured the victims of Katyn together. For both Russians and Poles, the truth about the past is of the utmost importance, no matter how hard or uncomfortable that truth may be. And we shall do everything to make sure our people know the truth,” Vladimir Putin said.

The Russian premier said that Katyn “has inseparably linked the fates” of the Soviet citizens who fell victim to the repressions, Poles executed in 1940 and Red Army officers who were killed by the Nazis.

“These crimes cannot be justified in any way,” Putin said. “Our country has given a clear political, legal and moral assessment of the evil of the totalitarian regime. And this assessment cannot be revised,” he stressed.

The machine of Stalin's totalitarian regime operated in secrecy, with details still coming out today. Katyn was one of four locations where the Poles were murdered.

Initially, the Soviet Union denied any responsibility and tried to blame Nazi forces for the killings. In the 1930s, Soviet security officials planted a forest to hide the mass graves of thousands of political prisoners who had been murdered and buried.

But a document released by Russian president Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s clearly showed the signature of Joseph Stalin on the execution order.

However, some Polish politicians are still confident that the entire truth has not been revealed. Poland demands that all archives be opened, in order that the "complete truth" be revealed and any surviving perpetrators be brought to justice.

“There are some Polish politicians who actually do not want any apologies from Russia,” says Dmitry Babich, a political analyst for RIA news agency. “They need apologies from Russia to continue bashing Russia. And there are some people who made their political careers on anti-Russian propaganda in Poland.”

“There is nothing that conceals the truth about what was happening and how,” Putin stressed at a joint press conference with Tusk in Smolensk following the commemoration service. Everything has been disclosed in “millions of documents” that were handed over to Poland, the premier said, adding that Russia is going to continue working in that direction.

These political mind games, however, affect not only official relations between Russia and Poland.

“My son's wife often went abroad with groups of tourists. She did not want to go to Russia, the Soviet Union, for a long time,” says Polish WWII veteran Jan Duda. “But when she finally went there and saw everything with her own eyes, she said that people were great but she did not like the political regime.”

Putin thanked Tusk for accepting his invitation to come to Katyn. The meeting has already been dubbed historic in the media and is believed to help improve Moscow-Warsaw relations that, among other things, have been darkened by the bloody events of 1940.

Speaking at the conference, Putin said he believes in positive future relations between the two states. He stressed that Russia sincerely condemns the crimes committed in the past.

“…We have all the chances to move to the future. What is most important is that we are really interested in it,” he added, as quoted by RIA Novosti.

“I am confident that Russia-Poland reconciliation, settling all the complicated issues dating back to the past, have not only bilateral but also a European dimension,” Putin said.

According to the premier, Europe is also interested in creating an atmosphere favorable for the development of cooperation between states.

Donald Tusk, for his part, called Wednesday’s meeting “crucial”, “a turning point” in the relations between Moscow and Warsaw. According to Tusk, its importance will be appreciated by future generations, but today the two states must continue to work together so the Smolensk meeting would not be seen as futile.

“For some people it is a turning point, while for others it is yet another step on the road to reconciliation,” he said.

Tusk admitted that Moscow and Warsaw still have a slightly different view on “some fragments” of the tragedy. “It is only truth that we want to tell about Katyn. Perhaps that truth requires patience,” he said.

Also, Tusk agreed with Putin that both Russians and Poles want relations between the countries to improve.

“Today we took a very important step, as we can now talk about the past, the present, and the future. We can talk as friends, neighbors, and as representatives of two peoples that want to understand each other better,” Donald Tusk said.

[Orao]

Positive development.

[TsarSamuil]

Vid,
rt.com/news/lithuania-polish-minority-language/

Tongue-tied: Lithuania’s Polish minority banned from using native language.

RT.com
26 November, 2010, 09:51

Poles in Lithuania say they are being persecuted for using their native language to spell Polish street names and even surnames. But authorities in Vilnius insist they are simply upholding the law.

Almost a quarter of a million ethnic Poles live in Lithuania. Warsaw ruled the land for centuries. So nowadays in some villages the Polish amount to over 80 per cent of the population.

Shop owner Galina Tomazsevska decided to make life easier for the Poles living in rural Lithuania.

She put signs in both Lithuanian and Polish languages in her store. But then authorities said she would be fined 200 euros for violating the state language law.

“I didn’t feel as if I was doing anything wrong,” Galina says. “This was something the local Polish community needed. Besides, I had the official state language on these signs as well. This is a violation of human rights. I was told I could have signs in English, German or French, but not in Polish.”

Another sticking point is the street names in villages where the Polish community lives. It is not the fact that Poles use both languages on street signs, but that they use word for word translation which enrages the authorities in Vilnius.

Secretary of the Association of Poles in Lithuania claims they even fail to spell their names correctly. All ID cards and passports of ethnic Poles must be written in the state language.

Edward Trusewicz says that the history of Polish-Lithuanian relations was difficult, but it must have been left behind when the two countries became members of the EU.

“Lithuania was so keen on becoming part of the EU, that they signed several documents on accession,” says Edward Trusewicz. “One of those was the European charter on national minorities. It says that we can easily use our native language. But now for some reason, the Lithuanian authorities are rolling back on their obligations to Brussels.”

RT turned to the body which overseas the use of language for answers. It says no obligation was violated and that in fact Vilnius had every right to persecute the use of Polish.

“Indeed, the charter on national minorities gives the Poles in Lithuania the right to use their language,” says Arunas Dambrauskas from the Language inspection of Lithuania. “But at the same time, the document says that a law of a country prevails over the charter’s clauses. And according to the law in Lithuania, we have every right to fine them for using their language on signs.”

Some Poles living in Lithuania suggest that this is Vilnius’ revenge for centuries of Polish occupation. Authorities on the other hand refute such claims and say that the use of Polish is being discussed within the country’s parliament.

But nobody can tell what will prevail – the attitude to the events of the past or the wish to be part of the united European legislation.

[CHORNYVOLK]

They can let Russians have their rights also.

[TsarSamuil]

Poland's Komorowski hails Russian recognition of Katyn massacre.

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski on Saturday hailed the decision by the lower house of Russia's parliament approving a declaration recognizing the 1940 Katyn massacre of Polish officers as a crime committed by Stalin's regime.

"I believe this is a positive signal that came from Moscow before the upcoming visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Warsaw. We must accept this document with great satisfaction keeping in mind that this is an official document by the [Russian] parliament," Komorowski was quoted by Polish media as saying.

Medvedev is scheduled to visit Poland by the end of the year.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the Russian State Duma's decision a "good step" and said he expects further steps from Russia in the same direction.

According to official data, over 20,000 Polish officers were killed in 1940 by the NKVD - the Soviet secret police. The executions took place in various parts of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The largest massacre occurred in the Katyn forest near the Russian city of Smolensk.

The Communists, who opposed the declaration after it was drafted, say the Polish officers were executed "by German occupation authorities in the fall of 1941, rather than by the NKVD in 1940." They also say they can provide documents to prove their viewpoint.

Communist lawmaker Vladimir Kashin said if the draft was adopted then the relatives of those shot in the massacre would attempt to gain financial compensation from Russia.

The issue has been a source of tension in Russian-Polish ties, but Russia's recent admission that Soviet forces were responsible did much to improve relations.

President Lech Kaczynski and other Polish dignitaries were killed in a plane crash earlier this year whilst on their way to a memorial ceremony for the Polish officers slain in Russia.

WARSAW, November 27 (RIA Novosti)