Communist pensions targeted

The ruling Civic Platform (PO) party has tabled a bill that would cut pensions for communist-era secret police as well as members of the Military Council for National Salvation (WRON), the junta formed during Poland's martial law years. According to Reuters, the move could affect up to 30,000 people.

Pensions, some amounting to zł.8,000 a month, could be halved or quartered.

Two of the most recognizable figures to be affected are former generals Wojciech Jaruzelski and Czesław Kiszczak. Both men are currently embroiled in a trial concerning the imposition of martial law in 1981.

"We know that people like Jaruzelski have not had to face up to what they've done," Zbigniew Chlebowski, a PO MP and head of the party's parliamentary club, told reporters. "After 18 years, justice should be served to the people who tried their best  to make communism in Poland last as long as possible. It is impossible that well-known people such as Jaruzelski and Kiszczak should not pay the price," Chlebowski added.

Kiszczak, the last prime minister of communist Poland, told TVP that he had no regrets. "I am not afraid. I would do what I did in my life the same way again, without regard for the consequences," he said.

According to PO's projections, lowering these pensions would trim zł.600 million from the national budget.