Sejm deputies clash on commemoration of anti-communist partisan group

Once again Sejm deputies from the left and right fiercely clashed about history, this time in yesterday's dispute regarding the commemoration of the underground opposition organization, Freedom and Independence (WiN), formed in 1945. A group of rightist deputies motioned to pay homage to the organization, as March 1 was the 50th anniversary of the date six members of the last WiN command were murdered by the Communist regime. However, deputy Longin Pastusiak from the post-communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) said that WiN itself killed thousands of people, some of them innocent. His statement caused outrage among WiN veterans present in the Sejm, as well as rightist deputies who shouted "Shame!" Even some of Pastusiak's fellow party members felt he had gone too far and said off the record that the data about thousands of people killed by WiN likely come from Communist Party propaganda. In the end, the Solidarity Election Action (AWS), Freedom Union (UW) and Polish Peasant Party (PSL) voted the homage through, while most SLD deputies abstained or were not present, with nine voting against. (Gazeta Wyborcza, pp.1, 6) T.J.