Pomoc finansowa USA dla opozycji i bylej opozycji w Polsce w latach 1991 - 1992

FY 1991 $50,000

FY 1992 $50,000

"CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE ENTERPRISE" (CIPE), to develop a program of assistance to the "Krakow Industrial Society", which seeks to encourage, educate and aid private entrepreneurs. The aid provides funding for business courses, legal assistance, an economic advisory service, an advocacy program and reading material on various aspects of private enterprise and private sector activities. The FY 1990 grant assists the KIS in its efforts to begin publication of a daily independent newspaper to Poland (?) that will cultivate understanding of the role private enterprise in economic and democratic development, encourage new business formation, and provide timely business information to entrepreneurs.

FY 1989 $ 61,775

FY 1990 $122,265

"CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE ENTERPRISE", to enable the Polish Chamber of Commerce and Industry to produce an analysis of the Polish private sector which will be used to identify specific policies deemed necessary for the development of a vital business sector.

FY 1990 $113,280

"CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE ENTERPRISE", to assist the Polish Council of Economic Societies (PCES) in its program of advocating legislative actions to encourage the transition to a market economy and improving legislative decision making on economic issues.

FY 1990 $77,900

"CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE ENTERPRISE", to support the Gdansk Institute for Market Economics in identifying barriers to privatization, developing a strategy for removing these barriers, increasing involvement of the private sector in Poland's privatization process, and building support for the process through an advocacy campaign targeted at policy makers, the media, and the public.

FY 1992 $107,850

"CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE ENTERPRISE", for a one-week training workshop for Polish public policy institutes and private business sector associations in order to build the skills of directors and staff in development, planning, management, and advocacy.

FY 1992 $50,250

"CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE ENTERPRISE", to help the Stefan Batory Foundation (George Soros and Zbigniew Bujak) in Warsaw to carry out a series of training seminars for journalists, focusing on the economic reform process and the media's role in shaping political and economic public opinion.

FY 1992 $25,000

"CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES", to assist the Independent Center for International Studies in encouraging grass-roots, civic initiatives, that foster regional cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe. The Center is a Warsaw-based nonpartisan foreign policy research institute founded in June 1989 as a successor to New Coalition, a Polish group that promoted cross-border cooperation among democratic opposition movements in all Central and Eastern European nations. The Center will also organize a series of conferences to discuss the new framework for relations among the countries in the region and will publish the proceedings of those conferences.

FY 1990 $40,000

"CENTRAL CONNECTICUT STATE UNIVERSITY", for a two-week training workshop, "Responsive Democratic Government and the Ethical Public Administrator: Building Trust in a Civil Society", which will cover the topics of ethics in civil service, standards of conduct, and responsive government, to be held in Wroclaw, Poland, for public officials from the Lower Silesia region.

FY 1992 $24,874

"COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY", to allow Professor Stanislaw Wellish to convene the Study Group on Polish Reform, a series of conferences with six leading economists from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Switzerland, and Poland. The Group plans to research and discuss solutions to Poland's most pressing economic problems. A final report and recommendations will be drawn based on their conclusions.

FY 1989 $108,868

"FREE TRADE UNION INSTITUTE" (FTUI), to support the independent trade union movement in Poland. Funds are provided to the Brussels-based Coordinating Office of Solidarnosc Abroad to disseminate information in the West on trade union rights in Poland and assist union activities inside Poland. Support is also provided for the New York-based Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe to translate and publish material on worker and human-rights related issues inside Poland and other East European countries. In addition, support is given to others engaged in support work for Solidarity publications in Poland, and to enable the union to reorganize and strengthen its industrial and regional structures.

FY 1988 $375,000

FY 1989 $435,000

FY 1990 $340,000

FY 1992 $100,000

"FREE TRADE UNION INSTITUTE", to administer funds appropriated by the United States Congress to assist Solidarity and the Independent Polish Trade Union Community. Funds were used for the maintenance of the administrative and service infrastructure of the trade union movement, as well as the vast information dissemination network. Resources helped sustain activists (ROAD) so that they could continue to strengthen the organization and work to keep the people of Poland informed on local, national and international events, particularly those that relate to democracy. FY 1990, funds support Sloidarity's national headquarters, regional offices and its Center for Social and Vocational Studies; to assist Solidarity with its publishing programs and educational and self-help programs.

FY 1988 $1,000,000

FY 1989 $1,000,000

FY 1990 $1,493,550

"FREE TRADE UNION INSTITUTE", to fund Independent Video Production through the Gdansk Video Center, which was established in 1981 by Solidarity. The Center maintains a valuable video archive of events in recent Polish history, from the period of martial law to the present. The Center has served as an important source of uncensored information and hopes to expand its activities into the production of full-length films.

FY 1989 $30,000

FY 1990 $30,000

"FREE TRADE UNION INSTITUTE", to support Solidarity's Economic Foundation, which is providing training, economic, legal and other assistance to workers during Poland's transition to a market economy.

FY 1990 $75,000

"FREE TRADE UNION INSTITUTE", to enable the Service Employees International Union to build a cooperative training program with Poland's still developing health care unions.

FY 1990 $93,704

"INSTITUTE FOR DEMOCRACY IN EASTERN EUROPE", to assist the Association for Free Speech, which was formed by the Consortium for Independent Publishers, to facilitate the expansion of independent publishing in Poland. The Association encourages the free and uncensored distribution of books and other literature by sponsoring books clubs, book fairs, and reading rooms and by holding seminars and readings with independent authors.

FY 1990 $30,000

"INSTITUTE FOR DEMOCRACY IN EASTERN EUROPE", to establish a Fund for Free Press and Publishing, which will enable formerly underground publishers in Poland to transfer their activities to a legal and above-ground mode of operation. The program provides single grants or loans to enable independent publishers to establish them self in the new political environment.

FY 1990 $100,000

"INSTITUTE FOR DEMOCRACY IN EASTERN EUROPE", to assist the Polish Independent Student's Association (NZS) in strengthening the independent youth movement in Poland and to enhance contacts among democratic youth groups throughout Central and Eastern Europe, as well as with their counterparts in the West. Funds are also supporting NZS's central offices in Warsaw.

FY 1991 $21,000

FY 1991 $22,000

"INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE, INC." of New York, N.Y., to administer funds appropriated by the U.S. Congress to assist the Independent Polish trade union "Solidarity" in maintaining a social fund established to provide medical assistance and related services to workers and their families. Funds are also used to purchase medical supplies and equipment, including ambulances, ultrasonographs and medicines for the treatment of heart decease and cancer; to support the SOS Coordination Pologne, a Paris based Committee that provides health treatment of Poles; and to establish health care and social services for children of members of Solidarity.

FY 1989 $1,000,000

FY 1990 $995,000

more to come...

NED APPENDIX TO CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY July 30, 1991

I. Election Technology

At the spring 1989 Roundtable Accords, Poland's communist regime brokered a power-sharing agreement with the democratic (!) opposition, led by representatives of the independent trade union Solidarity. Because Poland was the first communist bloc country to undertake a guided transition to democracy, the opposition had no choice but to accept parliamentary elections that guaranteed 65% of the seats to communist or communists-allied deputies. This election occurred, however, before special funds for electorial processes became available to the endowment. (note that bulk of the NED financing in Poland occurred in 1990 in favor of UD, just prior to the presidential election in Nov. 1990). While Poland has consistently led the democratic transition in the region, political party formation has lagged behind other countries in the region. In October 1991 Poland will hold its first democratic parliamentary elections.

In May 1991, at the request of the Center Alliance and ROAD (UD) political organizations, NDI carried out an inclusive party-building workshop in Poland for 14 political groups. Topics presented by Western experts included grass-roots organizing, message development, identifying constituents, communications, and party organization. NDI plans an August or September 1991 follow-up program of meetings. Pairs of Western experts, composed of one American an one West European, will meet with each party to address specific needs.

NRIIA, in conjunction with the Center Alliance and Poland's National Election Council, will organize en Electoral Law Colloquium in September 1991 to analyze, discuss and clarify the complicated provisions of the electoral statue. Each of the major political parties and/or coalitions will be invited to participate.

II. Civic Education

Despite the institution of martial law in 1981, Poland by the mid-1980s was the freest country of the Soviet bloc. And, as a result of international ties established by the Solidarity movement, it was much easier for the Endowment to assist programs being carried out by democratic activities within Poland.

Most of the Endowment's programs involved the promotion of independent thought, culture and education in Poland. From 1984 to 1989, through the Chicago-based Polish American Congress (PAC), Endowment support went to the independent Committees (UD and Gazeta Wyborcza) for Education, Culture, Academic Research and Health, which encourage and support independent democratic intellectual activities. PAC carried out a similar program with Endowment support from 1987 to 1990; it enabled the Paris-based POLCUL Foundation to award grants to sustain the work of Polish citizens noted for their contributions to the nation's independent culture.

The New York-based Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America received Endowment support on 1988 to prepare for publication four books in Polish on the development of democracy in Poland during the period 1939-1969. The books are collections of writings by Polish political leaders and intellectuals in Poland and the West written during a crucial period of development of Polish political thought.

NRIIA provided a 1989 grant to the Krakow chapter of Freedom and Peace (WIP) for the translation and publication of works of modern conservative intellectuals and the production of WIP's quarterly journal of opinion. WIP is noted for its advocacy of non-violent political activism, support for individual liberties, and involvement in the international environmental movement.

A substantial portion of the Endowment's Polish programs were devoted to sustaining and expanding independent publishing and culture. During the late 1980s, it was estimated that Poland had over 800 regularly appearing samizdat, or underground publications. These sources of independent information played an important role in Poland's struggle for democracy and were a significant factor in Poland's leading role in the democratic transformation of Central and Eastern Europe.

The Endowment, through Freedom House, assisted Aneks, a London publishing house which publishes a Polish-language political quarterly, "ANEKS" (Anneks), in 1986-87. The journal was distributed to intellectuals and students in Poland and throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

En Endowment grant to the PAC provided assistance for two projects which provided a better understanding of key, but often suppressed or distorted, events in Polish history. A Polish translation of Dr. Janusz Zawodny's "Death in a Forest: The Story of the Katyn Forest Massacre" was prepared for publication and distribution in Poland. Originally published in 1962, this academic study of one of the most controversial events of World War II served to fill one of the "blank spots" in Poland's tragic exhibition of Independent Polish Culture, organized in cooperation with NOWA Publishers, one of the largest independent publishing houses in Poland. The exhibition documented contemporary activities conducted by independent democratic groups in Poland and was shown in universities, libraries and Polish-American cultural centers around the United States.

Support from the Endowment during the years 1984-89 allowed IDEE to continue its assistance to independent publishing houses and self-education and human rights groups in Poland. In 1985, the independent publishing houses in Poland established a Fund for Independent Publishing, consisting of representatives of the major and smaller houses, overseen by a board in Poland whose members are independent of the publishers. Endowment assistance has provided the consortium with funds for equipment, supplies and personnel.

Through PAC, the Endowment has supported the Polish-language quarterly "Zeszyty Literackie" (Literary Notebooks), a highly respected Polish intellectual and literary journal publishes in Paris and distributed within Poland, since 1984. With Endowment assistance, the journal is now being published in Poland. In 1989 and 1990, PAC also administered an Endowment grant to the London-based publishers of the "Uncensored Poland News Bulletin", a bi-weekly newsletter of documents, reports and summaries of events in Poland for use by the media, scholars and researchers.

In 1990, IDEE received Endowment funding to establish a Fund for Free Press and Publishing, which will enable formerly underground publishers of Poland to transfer their activities to a legal and above-ground mode of operation. The program provides single grants or loans to enable independent publishers to establish them self in the new political environment.

A 1990 grant to the Polish American Congress of Chicago (Edward Moskal & Jan Nowak Jezioranski) went to help acquire two printing presses (Approx. $1000,000) for the (Adam Michnik-Szechter) Polish (!) independent daily newspaper "Gazeta Wyborcza" ("The Election Gazette"). Originally a concession made to the democratic opposition at the round-table talks by Poland's former communist government, "Gazeta Wyborcza" was the first legal independent newspaper in Central and Eastern Europe. The daily is credited with having created the breakthrough for freedom of the official press in Poland in May 1989. It has since become the largest independent and privately owned Polish newspaper; circulation is 500,000, and the daily has readership of 1.1 million. The Editor-in-Chief, Adam Michnik, is a well known Solidarity activist, journalist and historian.

An additional grant made to PAC in 1990 assisted the Gdansk Video Center. Established in 1981 by NSZZ Solidarity, the Center produces documentaries on important events in Poland's recent past and has maintained a video archive of events throughout the martial law period and over the past few years. Following the demise of communism in Poland, the studio has emerged from the underground and is now an independent, non-governmental film and information center. It maintains a video distribution system within Poland and among other Central and East European countries. Its objective is to provide and encourage the circulation of independent information, and promote the tolerance and democracy throughout the region. A former member of the Center, Marian Terlecki, is currently Poland's Minister of Radio and Television.

A grant was awarded to the Gdansk Video Center to purchase a professional quality betamax camera for the production of videos. With the original grant, a Sony Betacam SP has been purchased. Six video productions have also been completed in 1990, three since the purchase of the camera. One, entitled "Remains", is a 45 minute report filmed in the Polish Congress Hall and its surroundings accurately chronicling the demise of the communist Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR), which had ruled Poland since 1947. A second, depicting the life of Poland's current president, (former communist paid collaborator) Lech Walesa, and his role in the struggle for Polish democracy, is entitled simply "Leader". Another - "Simply Balcerowicz" (executor of the genocidal financial reform) - concerns the life and work of Leszek Balcerowicz, the Polish vice prime minister and architect of the country's economic reform plan (known also as Soros plan) for a free market economy. A video production about the national minorities situation in Poland - "Songs from the Bouquet" - is in the planning stage. The Center has also produced films about NSZZ Solidarity and the present situation in Poland and about the changes currently taking place in the Soviet Union. A film on the situation in Lithuania was produced both in Russian and Lithuanian versions. The film "Children of Martial Law", by Jerzy Afanasjew, looks at the experiences of young Poles growing up during the martial law period of the first half of the 1980s. "Poland 89" is a film chronicle of the triumph of democracy in Poland. The Center currently has a team working with president Lech Walesa to document the first, crucial period of Poland's first democratic leader over a half-century.

IDEE has received Endowment funding to assist the Polish Independent Student's Association (NSZ) in strengthening the independent youth movement in Poland and to enhance contacts among democratic youth groups throughout Central and Eastern Europe, as well as with their counterparts in the West. NZS has played an important role in the struggle and triumph for democracy in Poland. Funds are also supporting the NZS central offices in Warsaw.

The Endowment will support a fall 1991 international conference in Warsaw organized by Jewish B'nai B'rith International, focusing on the problems of national minorities, especially antisemitism, in Central and Eastern Europe.

III. Democratic Governance

Through the Polish American Congress, and alter rutgers University, Endowment grants are supporting the Foundation in Support of Local Democracy to train newly elected local government officials. Established in 1989, the Foundation is led by Sen. Jerzy Regulski, Chairman of the Senate Commission for Local Government. Following the May 1990 local government elections, short-term programs to train newly elected local government officials were prepared by the local Foundation centers based on local requirements. Examples of training sessions conducted during June and July 1990 include three in the western city of Wroclaw for the new city mayors, four for local government officials in Gdansk, three in Lodz, two in Bydgoszcz, and six in Szczecin. This training was conducted at the request of delegates of the (UD) Government Plenipotentiary for the Reform of Local Self-Government.

The Foundation estimates that training for over 50,000 present or aspiring local officials has already been accomplished. The general training pattern was a series of on-day meetings, composed of lectures followed by discussion, which addressed two or three pertinent topics per day. Seminar meetings were also incorporated into the training program. The instructors were mostly academic teachers with an interest in promoting effective local government. The participants, selected by the local program councils, were potential candidates for local government bodies or future municipal employees. Grant funds were used to pay honoraria for instructors, rental or classroom space, transportation of participants, and costs of educational materials.

The Foundation also published 13 handbooks on local government and 12 more are in progress. Several brochures were publishes jointly with other independent organizations. A video guide, entitled "The ABCs ,of Territorial Self Government" and a tape with two broadcasts were produced and distributed. Much-needed training courses for editors and journalists representing the local press, and for subsidies to already independent, local newspapers were also conducted. Five training sessions were organized for 120 participants and a data bank on local press was also created. A 3-month course for independent editors and journalists was completed.

The Foundation has taken part in several coordinating meetings in the US to provide up-to-date information on the progress of local government reform in Poland. The first took place on Capitol Hill in June 1990 and was addressed by the Foundation's President, Sen. Jerzy Regulski.

Until Poland has a democratically elected parliament (elections are scheduled in late October 1991), the Endowment considers democratic governance to be less of a priority in this country.

IV. Institutional Pluralism

(a) Trade Unions

Before the revolutions of 1989 which overthrew communist dictatorships throughout the region, the most important enclave of independent civil society in Eastern Europe was (dominated by udekomuna) the Solidarity trade union in Poland. The Endowment, through the Free Trade Union Institute, has supported the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarnosc (NSZZ Solidarity) since 1984. FTUI's aid was administered through the "Coordinating Office of Solidarity Abroad", which is based in Brussels, Belgium. Since 1982, the Office has been responsible for obtaining and coordinating international political, moral and material support for the NSZZ Solidarity trade union movement inside Poland.

NED grants in 1990 enabled NSZZ Solidarity to conduct a number of activities in Poland that have contributed to the country's democratization. These multifaceted activities included: support and equipment for Solidarity's national headquarters in Gdansk, regional board offices, and the Warsaw-based Center for Social and Vocational Studies; re-equipping the national union network of 20 printing offices and providing assistance to the union's main periodicals; support for a two-year educational project program in basic democratic trade unionism; promotion of voter education, turn-out and related activities for the national and local 1990 elections; support for activities related to the transition to the transition to a market-oriented national economy; support for NSZZ Solidarity's international program, i.e. "solidarity" activities in Central and East European countries.

From April 19-25, 1990, the union organized and conducted the Second National Congress of NSZZ Solidarity in Gdansk. The first since martial law, the Congress was the occasion for the actual re-legalization of NSZZ Solidarity. A new program of goals and activities was formulated that would address the political, economic and social needs of Polish society. The congress confirmed that NSZZ Solidarity would remain an independent trade union as well as a social movement constituting the main driving force of political and economic reforms in Poland. While the union determined that it must assist in facilitating the implementation of free market reforms, it also will work to ameliorate the reforms' necessary hardships upon Poland's working people.

In the first half of 1991, the NSZZ Solidarity's Center for Social and Vocational Training Studies in Warsaw conducted and analysis of Poland's radical Economic Reform Plan. (known as Soros-Balcerowicz reform) The plan has been the catalyst for many fundamental changes taking place in Poland. The study took particular note of how workers were being affected by the "shock therapy" that the country was undergoing.

In 1990, a NED grant to FTUI assisted the Economic Foundation of NSZZ Solidarity, which was created in October 1989 as the specialized arm of Solidarity to support economic reforms taking place in Poland and to provide individual and collective economic support to members of the union who are struggling to endure the hardships caused by Poland's transition to a market-oriented economy. With Endowment funding, the Foundation planned to conduct the following activities: a business activity program; an employment agency program, financial assistance to employees and their families, the protection of living standards, and economic, legal, organizational and informational assistance to NSZZ Solidarity members willing to engage in private business endeavors in Poland.

At present, seven regional departments of the Economic Foundation have undertaken the development of professional managerial schools. In add tion to professional courses and vocational training, these schools will conduct programs in compliance with MBA requirements. Furthermore, the regional departments are in the process of implementing an anti-unemployment program, collecting data for the Economic Information Bank (BIG), conducting vocational training and professional courses for future managers and developing regional development agencies.

Through FTUI, NED also assisted Rural Solidarity, or the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union of Individual Farmers, which is an affiliate of (udekomuna dominated) NSZZ Solidarity. Rural Solidarity functions in a trade union role by representing its members before local government and is a social movement and organizer of a broad section of Poland's rural population. It seeks to include Polish farmers in the reconstruction of their country. While it emerged from the same stream of social protest against communist rule in 1980, Rural Solidarity is completely separate and independent from NSZZ Solidarity (!). Functioning legally since April 1989, Rural Solidarity is the largest rural organization in Central and Eastern Europe, active in approximately 2,200 communities throughout Poland, and seeks to transform Poland's agricultural system.

Since June 1990, Rural Solidarity has organized two seminars for members of union cooperatives. It is setting up its own co-ops along side of the oversized, so-called cooperatives structures established under communist rule - which in many cases continue to exist and function. One hundred and sixty new co-ops have been formed since May 1990. Where possible, these union co-ops are attempting to wrest control of the old structures from the remaining nomenklatura. Through training and education, Rural Solidarity os attempting to demonstrate that true co-op structures can be effective means to resolving the difficult problems faced by farmers and the rural populace as Poland moves toward a free-market economy.

During the first quarter of 1991, Rural Solidarity representatives took part in a three-day seminar on de collectivizing agriculture in Eastern Europe. Framers, trade unionist and representatives of governments from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, the CSFR, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Soviet Union and Romania, in addition to representatives from France, the United States and Chile, participated. The seminar conclusions and results are to be published and will be.made available to Rural Solidarity regions as well as to public administrators.

(b) Business

The Krakow Industrial Society (KIS) was begun as an informal or unregistered organization in 1985 by a group of private entrepreneurs and academics. Now formally registered, KIS is one of the most dynamic and enterprising voluntary business organizations in Poland. In keeping with the rapid transformation of Polish society, KIS is working to encourage new business formation, train aspiring entrepreneurs, build case law supporting private initiative, and advocate changes in laws and regulations affecting private enterprise.

Under a first grant from CIPE through NED, KIS expanded its existing entrepreneurship courses, prepared and published six policy papers proposing changes in Polish law and regulations on private initiative, increased its legal representation and economic advisory program to 1,500 cases, distributed 10,000 business and economics texts to its members, to students in the KIS enterprise courses and to other private enterprise-related organizations in Poland. These materials were acquired from American publishers on a donated basis by the Sabre Foundation who undertook shipment to Poland.

Under a second grant from CIPE, KIS will take over a former communist newspaper and begin publication of a daily independent newspaper with a strong business section covering the Krakow region. The newspaper will serve as a tool to cultivate appreciations and understanding of the role of private enterprise in economic and democratic development. It is also aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship and new business formation along with providing timely information necessary to entrepreneurs and their businesses.

The Polish Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), recreated in February 1990, is an independent, non-governmental, voluntary organization committed to the principles of market economics. PCCI has received a grant from CIPE to research the status of the emerging private sector in Poland.

In the recent past, entrepreneurs protected them self from government interference by operating underground. Fir this reason, there is very little information and no empirical data about the potentials and needs of businesses in Poland. Without this information, no business organization will be able to inject a broadly representative business point of view into the economic policy debates in Poland. To respond to this need, CIPE has provided a grant to PCCI to produce an unprecedented analysis of the Polish private sector, its needs and potential, as it has emerged in the new economic conditions in Poland. Through direct advocacy, PCCI will implement specific policies and allocate resources identified by this analysis as necessary for the development of a vital business sector.

The Polish Council of Economic Societies is an umbrella group for about 25 local business associations or economic societies, whose members are private businessman. The Council's purpose is to represent the opinions of its members in support of private ownership and market economies.

Legislators are key players in the formation of economic policy and therefore will have an impact on the success of Poland's economic reforms. It is crucial at this point to ensure that the legislators, who are all new to free market concepts, are well-informed about business and economic reform issues and understand the impact of legislation on the private sector so that they can make sound decisions.

Through private sector industry reports and an economic advisory service (based on similar successful programs CIPE has funded in Latin America), the Council will advocate specific legislative actions that encourage the growth of a market economy, improve Polish legislators' decision-making capability on economic issues and contribute to the institutionalization of private sector input into law-making within Poland.

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