Latest news with #Wałęsa
Khaleej Times
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Khaleej Times
'Change the world': Nobel Laureates gather in Dubai, call for peace and climate action
'We did not have weapons nor did we have power. But we had unity, and that was enough,' said Lech Wałęsa, a Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1983 and former president of Poland. He addressed the audience during the Global Justice, Love, and Peace Summit, which concluded on Sunday with the release of A Love Letter to Humanity. Wałęsa, once an electrician at the Gdańsk Shipyard, played a pivotal role in leading a peaceful revolution that reshaped the course of European history. Addressing a global audience, he emphasised that meaningful change doesn't stem from dominance or force—it comes from ordinary people standing together with a shared purpose. He was one of 12 Nobel Peace Prize winners who gathered for the two-day summit at the Dubai Exhibition Centre in Expo City. The event brought together voices from across the globe: freedom fighters, climate scientists, human rights advocates, and youth leaders—all united in their vision for a better future. 'I wasn't a politician. I was just a worker,' Wałęsa recalled. 'In the 1950s, we tried to fight injustice, but we failed. We tried again in the '60s and '70s, still to no avail. We were up against something massive. But eventually, we figured it out. The answer was solidarity. We became one, and we kept quiet about what we were building — until it was too powerful to be torn down.' With a firm voice, he directed his message to the younger generation: 'If you believe in justice and work together with love in your heart, you can change your country. Maybe even change the world.' Wałęsa's message of courage and unity echoed in the words of fellow laureate Kailash Satyarthi, a lifelong advocate against child labour and trafficking. 'When I received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, I called it a love letter to humanity,' he said. 'To me, compassion is not just a feeling—it's kindness in action.' Satyarthi recounted the harrowing stories of children he rescued from factories, stone quarries, and trafficking networks. 'Some of my colleagues were killed. I was attacked and left with injuries; I still bear the scars. But I'm alive, and I keep going — because these children are our children, and they deserve better.' He reflected on a powerful moment in 1998, when the world united for a cause. 'We led a global march across 103 countries. It lasted six months, and over a million people joined. We walked until the world listened. Today, international laws exist to protect children—but the fight is far from over. There are still millions of kids who are invisible to the world.' The summit also turned its focus to another urgent issue — our planet. Dr Mohan Munasinghe, a Nobel laureate and former vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), addressed the climate crisis with a clear message. 'Human beings are the cause of climate change,' he said. 'And we will also be the ones who suffer the most because of it." 'I want to apologise to the next generation. We are leaving you a world that is damaged, divided, and dangerous. I am sorry we let it come to this.' Still, he offered hope. Dr Munasinghe expressed faith in the youth to lead the way forward—if they learn from the past. 'Don't repeat our mistakes. Don't ignore science,' he urged. He pointed to a practical path ahead: supporting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, which he called humanity's final opportunity to right its course. 'There is so much inequality. The richest people on Earth consume a hundred times more than the poorest. It's not fair. The more we destroy the planet's resources, the more we will fight over what is left. If we want peace, we must first find peace within ourselves.'
Euronews
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
We need to improve democracy, Lech Wałęsa says
ADVERTISEMENT Lech Wałęsa, former President of Poland and key figure in the country's fight for democracy, acknowledged in an exclusive interview with Euronews that generational mistakes have been made, but solutions are beginning to emerge. Despite having been out of office for nearly three decades, Wałęsa remains deeply connected to the political realities of Poland and the world. In recent years, defending democracy has become a key focus for the former leader. "Look at what's happening around the world today—Trump, France, Germany. What conclusion should our generation draw? We need to improve democracy because people no longer believe in it or defend it," Wałęsa emphasized. The former president believes that elected officials should be subject to recall and that the financing of political parties and politicians must be fully transparent. "This generation should prioritize these three points in all political programs. Only then can we restore faith in democracy and ensure its defence. If not, populist demagogues will set our world on fire," Wałęsa warned. Wałęsa expressed concern over the current state of democracy, asserting that many countries are still functioning under outdated political systems. He called for the development of new systems that reflect the changing global landscape. "The state construct we know ended at the close of the 20th century. Democracy, as we understand it, was finished at the end of the 19th century. What does the Left or the Right mean today? These are outdated concepts that no longer suit our times." According to Wałęsa, the new generation's task is to redefine the world and reignite trust in democracy. He emphasized the need for public discourse and new ideas to emerge from these conversations. Concerns Over Ukraine's Future When discussing the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Wałęsa voiced concern about a potential bad compromise being forced upon Kyiv after agreeing to the American ceasefire terms. "Ukraine is defending itself against Russian aggression, but what it's doing is also a civilizational choice. What Russia and even Trump represent is regression—a backward step in development," Wałęsa said. He also expressed the view that peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia would not be enough to bring lasting change. "Even if we help Ukraine win today, Russia will rise again in ten to fifteen years if we don't help them change their political system," he warned. For Wałęsa, the key to long-term stability lies in building a civil society in Russia. Wałęsa also pointed out that the West, at times, played a role in driving Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggressive stance. "There was a moment when Putin was on the right track. But the way the world treated him as a 'bandit' pushed him in the wrong direction," he noted, adding that assessments of world leaders should be nuanced. "We need to be careful with our judgments and first consider what we are doing ourselves." The former president outlined three principles that he believes could help stabilize political life and governance. Wałęsa argued that politicians should be limited to two terms in office to prevent the concentration of power. Drawing a parallel with Russia, he said, "It's not Putin or Stalin—it's the political system that breeds authoritarianism. Russia is a beautiful country, it just has a bad political system." The Danger of Arms and Weapons Development In line with his belief in peaceful solutions, Wałęsa criticized the arms race, including the development of nuclear weapons, as a path that leads to destructive outcomes. While acknowledging the need for effective defense mechanisms, he cautioned against the temptation to attack. "If we continue down this road, we will all lose. The only reason to defend ourselves is to create space for reflection and systemic changes. Without this, there will be no winners. We will all be defeated," Wałęsa concluded.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ghosts of the Cold War
'Here I am, then. I have come home.' So said Pope John Paul II after landing in Warsaw in 1983, bending to kiss the soil of his native country. The mood was patriotic and defiant. 'Poland for the Poles!' came the shouts from the crowd—union men, priests, fathers and their sons. 'We are the real Poland!' The pope continued: 'I consider it my duty to be with my fellow countrymen in this sublime and at the same time difficult moment.' The demonstrators unfurled banners advertising the Solidarity movement and chanted the name of its leader, Lech Wałęsa. The 81-year-old Wałęsa, one of the great heroes of the Cold War, is still very much with us, and still engaged in public affairs. 'Gratitude is due to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed their blood in defense of the values of the free world,' he said earlier this week. 'We do not understand how the leader of a country that is a symbol of the free world cannot see this.' Wałęsa is not the only figure from that day who remains part of our public life. He and other supporters of Polish sovereignty, in Poland and around the world, were being spied on by the KGB's foreign-operations directorate, whose roster of murderers, torturers, and villains included Vladimir Putin. The KGB's mission was to do in Poland what it had done in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s—suppress the movement for liberty and sovereignty. The ghost of the KGB is now working toward that end in Ukraine. Cold War fantasies such as The Manchurian Candidate imagined it would take some incredible and complicated scheme to put a man willing to do the bidding of the KGB and its analogues and epigones into Washington's halls of power. In reality, all it took was a man whose values align with those of the KGB rather than with those of the Founding Fathers. Some of my friends believe that there is some dark backstory to Donald Trump worthy of a 1970s political thriller: some kompromat, some financial leverage, something. That could be the case, but I would not be surprised that when the history of our time is written—if the history of our time is permitted to be written—what we will learn is that Trump did Moscow's bidding because he prefers the politics of Putin to those of, say, Dwight Eisenhower, while sycophants such as J.D. Vance and Ted Cruz did Moscow's bidding on behalf of Trump because they preferred being on the inside to being on the outside. (These are unhappy men: To live in fear of being on the outside looking in is to deny oneself the rarefied pleasure—the great genuine joy—of being on the outside looking out.) What was it that had the pope and his fellow Poles ready to take on Moscow? And what kind of enemy was the regime Putin served? Ask a statistician, in this case R.J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii, who wrote a considerable book on Moscow's 'democide,' as he called it. Probably 61,911,000 people, 54,769,000 of them citizens, have been murdered by the Communist Party—the government—of the Soviet Union. This is about 178 people for each letter, comma, period, digit, and other characters in this book. Old and young, healthy and sick, men and women, and even infants and infirm, were killed in cold blood. They were not combatants in civil war or rebellions, they were not criminals. Indeed, nearly all were guilty of … nothing. Some were from the wrong class—bourgeoisie, land owners, aristocrats, kulaks. Some were from the wrong nation or race—Ukrainians, Black Sea Greeks, Kalmyks, Volga Germans. Some were from the wrong political faction—Trotskyites, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries. Or some were just their sons and daughters, wives and husbands, or mothers and fathers. And some were those occupied by the Red Army—Balts, Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Rumanians. Then some were simply in the way of social progress, like the mass of peasants or religious believers. Or some were eliminated because of their potential opposition, such as writers, teachers, churchmen; or the military high command; or even high and low Communist Party members themselves. … An infant born in 1917 had a good chance of being killed by the Party sometime in his future. A more precise statement of this is given by the average of the democide rates for each period, weighted by the number of years involved. Focusing on the most-probable mid-risk of .45 percent, throughout Soviet history, including the relatively safe years after the 1950s, the odds of the average citizen being killed by his own government has been about 45 to 10,000; or to turn this around, 222 to 1 of surviving terror, deportations, the camps, or an intentional famine. As pointed out in the text, this is almost twenty times the risk of an American dying in a vehicular accident. Among the great holocausts of the 20th century, the German one stands out for its particular horrors, the Chinese one for the scale of its enormity, and the Russian one—ah, but which Russian one? Vladimir Putin's employers and patrons had a long time to do their murdering, from the gulag to the Lubyanka. The one most relevant to today's headlines is the one inflicted on Ukraine in the 1930s, the Holodomor, when Moscow engineered the intentional deaths by famine of as many as 5 million people in order to crush the Ukrainian independence movement. Putin today bombs maternity hospitals to crush the spirit—and the fact—of Ukrainian independence. Mass graves, torture, murder—this isn't a new story for Russians in Ukraine. 'Peace,' say the ladies and gentlemen over at Fox News. That's what this is all about, we are to believe: peace. Let's not get all judgmental about who murdered whom. There is not much one can say in defense of the man, but Roger Ailes was at least more straightforward than the current Fox News brass when it came to forcing employees to assume undignified positions as the price of career advancement. Back to 1983 for a moment: The pope said a 'kiss placed on the soil of Poland' is 'like a kiss placed on the hands of a mother,' adding the nation has 'suffered much' and 'therefore has a right to a special love.' Ukraine has suffered much at the hands of the same people—and in the case of KGB veteran Vladimir Putin, literally the same people. And, under the current American dispensation, it has a right to … be stripped of its natural resources, apparently, not to mention its sovereignty, and handed over, once again, to domination by the people who have killed millions of Ukrainians and who will, with the tacit consent of these United States, kill many more. The Poles were fortunate to have a pope who could say: 'Here I am, then. I have come home.' It is good to have one of your own in a high place. But Ronald Reagan wasn't Polish. Margaret Thatcher wasn't Polish. William F. Buckley Jr. wasn't Polish. You didn't have to be Polish to understand what was happening in 1983. You don't have to be Ukrainian to understand what is happening today. And though a lot of these proud American patriots turn out to be on the Kremlin's payroll, that doesn't explain the bigger story. Pro-Russian Republicans are pro-Russian because they are pro-Russian. You don't have to be Russian, or a covert Russian asset, to prefer Moscow's way of doing things. You don't have to be an actual literal idiot to be a useful idiot in the Cold War sense, though it helps. You just have to choose to side with the Kremlin. Trump and Vance have chosen, Pete Hegseth and Tucker Carlson have chosen, and Republicans have chosen to go along with them. Reagan spoke of 'a time for choosing.' Now is such a time. It always is.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Fact Check: Yes, former Polish president Lech Wałęsa wrote letter to Trump about pausing military aid to Ukraine
Claim: Former President of Poland Lech Wałęsa wrote a letter to Donald Trump criticizing the U.S. President's decision to suspend the delivery of all U.S. military aid to Ukraine. Rating: Context: Wałęsa did post such a letter on his Facebook page. However, it is not clear whether he wrote the letter alone or in conjunction with any of its signatories. It is also not clear whether he sent the letter directly to Trump or just posted it on social media. In early March 2025, a rumor circulated online that former President of Poland Lech Wałęsa wrote a critical letter to Donald Trump expressing "fear and distaste" at the U.S. President's tense White House meeting with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Feb. 28 and that the letter denounced the U.S. decision to halt military aid to Ukraine. During the Oval Office meeting, Trump accused Zelenskyy of not being grateful enough for U.S. support in Ukraine's war with Russia. Three days later, on March 3, the U.S. president temporarily suspended the delivery of all U.S. military aid to Ukraine. Amid the diplomatic dispute, social media users claimed on X and Facebook (archived, archived, archived) that Wałęsa — a trade unionist who served as Poland's president between 1990 and 1995 and who played a leading role in the fall of Communism — wrote the letter to Trump that included criticism of the U.S. president. One X user, whose post had amassed more than 13.1 million views as of this writing, wrote a thread containing non-verbatim excerpts from the letter. The thread started: "Former President of Poland Lech Wałęsa wrote the following letter to Donald Trump." Snopes readers also emailed us to ask if it was true that the former Polish president wrote the letter. In short, Wałęsa did post the text of such a letter to Trump on his Facebook page on March 3 (archived). Therefore, we have rated this claim as true. The former Polish president and 38 other Polish former political prisoners signed the document. However, it is not clear whether Wałęsa wrote the letter alone or in conjunction with any of the other signatories. It was also not clear whether they actually sent the letter to Trump or just posted it on social media. Snopes contacted the former president to ask about the authorship of the letter and whether it was sent to the U.S. president. We will update this story if we receive a response. At the top of the communication, a note appears in Polish before the letter addresses Trump. Facebook's English translation reads: "After the U.S. decision to suspend supplies to Ukraine, if the answer was in my gesture it would be 'Let's do our part' not a step back. AMEN. This is the text we signed." (Google's English translation reads: "After the U.S. decision to stop deliveries to Ukraine, if the answer were in my hands it would be 'Let's do our thing' not a step back. AMEN. We signed this text.") In the letter, Wałęsa and the signatories said they "watched the report of [Trump's] conversation" with Zelenskyy "with fear and distaste" and that they considered it "insulting" for the U.S. president to expect "respect and gratitude" for U.S. military aid. The signatories also compared the Ukrainian president's treatment in the Oval Office to the experiences they endured while being interrogated when they lived under Communist rule. The Facebook translation of the letter read in full: Your Excellency Mr President, We watched the report of your conversation with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenski with fear and distaste. We consider your expectations to show respect and gratitude for the material help provided by the United States fighting Russia to Ukraine insulting. Gratitude is due to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed their blood in defense of the values of the free world. They have been dying on the frontline for more than 11 years in the name of these values and independence of their Homeland, which was attacked by Putin's Russia. We do not understand how the leader of a country that is the symbol of the free world cannot see it. Our panic was also caused by the fact that the atmosphere in the Oval Office during this conversation reminded us of one we remember well from Security Service interrogations and from the debate rooms in Communist courts. Prosecutors and judges at the behest of the all-powerful communist political police also explained to us that they hold all the cards and we hold none. They demanded us to stop our business, arguing that thousands of innocent people suffer because of us. They deprived us of our freedoms and civil rights because we refused to cooperate with the government and our gratitude. We are shocked that Mr. President Volodymyr Zelenski treated in the same way. The history of the 20th century shows that every time the United States wanted to keep its distance from democratic values and its European allies, it ended up being a threat to themselves. This was understood by President Woodrow Wilson, who decided to join the United States in World War I in 1917. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood this, deciding after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 that the war for the defense of America would be fought not only in the Pacific, but also in Europe, in alliance with the countries attacked by the Third Reich. We remember that without President Ronald Reagan and American financial commitment it would not have been possible to bring the collapse of the Soviet Union empire. President Reagan was aware that millions of enslaved people were suffering in Soviet Russia and the countries it conquered, including thousands of political prisoners who paid for their sacrifice in defense of democratic values with freedom. His greatness was m. in. on the fact that he without hesitation called the USSR the "Empire of Evil" and gave it a decisive fight. We won, and the statue of President Ronald Reagan stands today in Warsaw vis a vis of the U.S. embassy. [Google translates these last two sentences to: His greatness consisted, among other things, in the fact that he unhesitatingly called the USSR the "Evil Empire" and gave it a decisive fight. We won, and a monument to President Ronald Reagan stands today in Warsaw opposite the U.S. Embassy.] Mr. President, material aid - military and financial - cannot be equivalent to the blood shed in the name of independence and freedom of Ukraine, Europe, as well as the whole free world. Human life is priceless, its value cannot be measured with money. Gratitude is due to those who make the sacrifice of blood and freedom. It is obvious for us, the people of "Solidarity", former political prisoners of the communist regime serving Soviet Russia. We are calling for the United States to withdraw from the guarantees it made with the Great Britain in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which recorded a direct obligation to defend the intact borders of Ukraine in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons resources. These guarantees are unconditional: there is no word about treating such aid as an economic exchange. Biographies on the Lech Wałęsa Institute website say the "Solidarity" trade union the former Polish president led was the first independent and oppositional social movement in the Soviet bloc. In December 1981, the Polish government introduced martial law in an attempt to suppress political opposition, such as Wałęsa's movement. The then-trade union leader was incarcerated until November 1982 before winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. Snopes contacted the White House for comment and will update this story if we receive a response. Lech Wałęsa Institute. "Biography • Fundacja Instytut Lecha Wałęsy." Accessed 4 Mar. 2025. ---. "Foundation - Lech Walesa Institute." Accessed 4 Mar. 2025. Hunder, Max, and Olena Harmash. 'Zelenskiy Calls Trump Clash Regrettable: "It's Time to Make Things Right"'. Reuters, 4 Mar. 2025. LaMagdeleine, Izz Scott. '15 Rumors We've Fact-Checked about Zelenskyy'. Snopes, 1 Mar. 2025, Rascouët-Paz, Anna. 'Zelenskyy Met with Democrats — and Republicans — before His Meeting with Trump'. Snopes, 3 Mar. 2025, The Nobel Prize. "Lech Wałęsa Biographical." Accessed 4 Mar. 2025. ---. "Lech Wałęsa Facts." Accessed 4 Mar. 2025. 'Trump Pauses US Military Aid to Ukraine While Pressuring Zelenskyy to Move toward Quick End to War'. AP News, 3 Mar. 2025, Wałęsa, Lech. "Letter to Trump." 3 Mar. 2022, Accessed 4 Mar. 2025. Wrona, Caroline Wazer, Aleksandra. 'Unpacking Claim Zelenskyy Called Vance an Expletive at White House Meeting'. Snopes, 3 Mar. 2025,
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Solidarity Leader Lech Wałęsa: Trump's Zelensky Meltdown was ‘Like Communist Secret Police'
Legendary Polish anti-Communist Lech Wałęsa has slammed Donald Trump's Oval Office attack on Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky, comparing it to Soviet secret police tactics. Wałęsa, 81, signed a letter along with 38 other Poles who had been held captive by the Communist regime, telling Trump that the Friday spectacle filled them 'with horror and distaste.' The former Polish president previously revealed that he met Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2010, and attached a photo of the two of them to the letter, which he posted on Facebook on Monday. The letter was signed by Wałęsa and 38 former Polish political prisoners, who said 'the atmosphere in the Oval Office' reminded them of 'Security Service interrogations and from the courtrooms in communist courts.' 'Prosecutors and judges, commissioned by the omnipotent communist political police, also explained to us that they had all the cards in their hands, and we had none,' they write in the letter, referencing President Donald Trump's comment that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was not in a position to negotiate. 'You don't have the cards right now,' he told Zelensky during their tense Oval Office meeting. Wałęsa's and the other signatories said they were 'shocked' by Trump treatment of Zelensky, drawing parallels between the meeting and their own experiences under Poland's former communist regime. In particular, they condemned Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance's demands that Zelensky express more gratitude for the material assistance the U.S. has given Ukraine while it defends itself against Russia's invasion, calling it 'insulting.' 'Gratitude is due to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed blood in defense of the values of the free world. They are the ones who have been dying on the front lines,' they said. 'We do not understand how the leader of a country that is the symbol of the free world cannot see it.' Taki tekst podpisaliśmy: Szanowny Panie Prezydencie, Relację z Pańskiej rozmowy z Prezydentem Ukrainy Wołodymyrem... Posted by Lech Wałęsa on Monday, March 3, 2025 Wałęsa was a founder of Poland's pro-democracy Solidarity movement when he was a shipyard worker in the port city of Gdansk. When martial law was declared in 1981, he was imprisoned for 11 months. In 1989, he negotiated with the Moscow-backed communist regime for Poland to hold parliamentary elections, which eventually led to the peaceful ouster of communism from Poland. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Price in 1983 and presided over the country's transition to a free market liberal democracy during his term as president from 1990 to 1995. Among the other signatories were democracy activist and historian Adam Michnik, journalist Seweryn Blumsztajn, and politician Władysław Frasyniuk.
