Gov't concept of industrial park for Ozarow fail to quell violent protests

The government has pledged to help the employees of the liquidated Fabryka Kable in Ozarow. Together with the local government, it is to prepare a program to encourage entrepreneurs to take an interest in the site of the former plant. Labor Minister, Jerzy Hausner, informed Kazimierz Stachurski, the mayor of Ozarow that, "There is no chance of reopening the old company". The plan is to create on the four-hectare factory site an industrial park, which would attract new companies and create new jobs. "The area could be exempted from real estate tax and investors would have to guarantee that they would first employ former factory workers," said Hausner. This did not satisfy the protesting former employees. At around lunch time, when Gdansk shipyard workers arrived, the demonstration began to escalate with missiles, fireworks and petrol bombs being thrown at the factory gates as the protesters tried to stop trucks removing factory machinery and supplies. The police, armed with truncheons and shields intervened and cut off the protesting crowd from the exit road so the trucks could successfully leave loaded up. "I'm afraid we are unable to save the factory," said Slawomir Gzik from the National Protest Committee. (Rzeczpospolita, 30 Nov. - Dec. 1, p. A1) A.C.