Komorowski celebrates Lithuanian holiday in Vilnius

  • 2011-02-23
  • By Rokas M. Tracevskis

FLIRTING BEFORE THE HOLY MASS: On Feb. 16, after the Lithuanian Independence Day ceremony in front of the presidential palace, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite and Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski went to the Vilnius Cathedral.

VILNIUS - On Feb. 16, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite and Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski came to Daukanto Square, situated in front of the Lithuanian president’s palace, to celebrate the restoration of Lithuania’s independence, which was proclaimed in Vilnius in 1918. The holiday was slightly saddened that morning by the death of Justinas Marcinkevicius, 80, who is considered to be the greatest Lithuanian poet of the second half of the 20th century.

The national flags of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were raised and two of Germany’s air force fighter jets flew over the square, saluting civilians and soldiers there. The crowd was addressed by both presidents. This year Lithuania introduced the same ritual which is practiced in Warsaw on each Nov. 11, Poland’s Independence Day, a ritual adopted when Polish President Lech Kaczynski and Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus were in power: only the presidents of Lithuania and Poland arrive there and give their speeches to the civilian and military crowd in Warsaw’s Pilsudski Square. Komorowski’s visit was interesting due to the recent, constant anti-Lithuanian verbal attacks by the Polish Foreign Ministry and Polish media.

“Lithuania made this resolute and fearless step after a 100 year-long occupation. At that time, few in the world believed that it was possible to stand up and actually win. However, the nation never lost its faith,” Grybauskaite said in her speech to the people gathered at Daukanto Square.

Komorowski demonstrated some knowledge of the Lithuanian language, but spoke mostly in Polish, via his interpreter. “Lithuania and Poland twice restored their independence and their states. In 1918, our nations restored independence, being in conflict over Vilnius city. In 1989, Poland, and in 1990, Lithuania, again restored their independence. This time we together regained independence fighting against totalitarianism and communism,” Komorowski said, adding “My heart beats faster here because my ancestors are from here.”

It is interesting that he gave the speech in the same square where in 1938, a Polish nationalist rally  demanded that Poland’s leadership send the Polish army on to Kaunas to finish Lithuania’s independence. On Oct. 9, 1920, despite the Suwalki (now in Poland) truce agreement between Lithuania and Poland of Oct. 7 imposed on Poland by the West (the truce was due to take effect on Oct. 10), some of the Polish army troops claiming to be ‘the Lithuanian rebels,’ according to secret instructions from Warsaw, entered Vilnius creating the pro-Polish puppet state of Middle Lithuania, which joined Poland in 1922 and belonged to it until 1939, when the troops of Lithuania marched into Vilnius, which was the capital city of the huge Lithuanian empire for many ages (Lithuania did not lose its independence even after the confederation agreement of 1569 with Poland).

Some roots of the problems in the Vilnius-Warsaw relations are in that history. There is a significant Polish-speaking minority in some rural areas of the Vilnius region. It is easy to predict the results of the municipal election of Feb. 27 in two areas of the region: the Polish Electoral Action of Lithuania, the small Polish nationalist party, as always, is expected to win in the two small Slavic population-dominated rural and poor municipalities: Salcininkai and the territory surrounding Vilnius city, which is a former bastion of pro-Soviet forces (it is no wonder that Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarusian TV is still very popular there), with a current touch of some grotesque Polish-style Catholicism as a curtsy to donors from Poland – the councils of these two municipalities, by a majority of votes, already officially proclaimed Jesus Christ as the highest ruler of their municipalities.

Komorowski went to the small town of Maisiagala, north-west of Vilnius, in the early morning of Feb. 16, before his speech on Daukanto Square. He met with some 50 people of Lithuania’s Polish community in the Polish school of Maisiagala. This is a municipal election year in Lithuania and parliamentary election year in Poland – so, everybody, including Komorowski, at that meeting in front of cameras of Poland’s TV (which is re-broadcast by Vilnius at Lithuanian taxpayer expense in Lithuania) blamed Lithuania for not implementing the 1994 treaty between Lithuania and Poland on friendly relations and good neighborly cooperation. The accusations were traditional: not allowing some letters, specific only to the Polish alphabet, in Lithuanian passports, speculation (with no result) in the Lithuanian parliament about the possibility of introducing two subjects taught in Lithuanian in the local Polish schools, and the slow return of land, nationalized by the Soviets, in the Vilnius region.

The situation with names in passports is now regulated according to a decision of the Lithuanian Constitutional Court on this matter, one which cannot be changed or questioned by politicians. The current Lithuanian practice was recently supported by the opinion of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, which is the highest legal authority in the EU territory. The current practice, with names in passports, does not contradict the agreement of 1994, where both sides pledged to write names according to their sounds. The accusations regarding schools sounded rather ridiculous in the new modern Polish school, with 170 pupils in Maisiagala, while 300 pupils of the Lithuanian school are forced to attend their shabby building in Maisiagala. Almost all subjects in Lithuanian schools in Poland are in Polish, while all subjects in Polish schools in Lithuania, except Lithuanian language lessons, are in Polish. Even the local Poles leaving that meeting admitted that the situation with Polish schools in Lithuania is unique in the EU and the world: over 100 schools for a minority of over 200,000, while 1 million Poles in Belarus and 1 million Poles in Ukraine have two Polish schools in each of those two countries. The complaints over the slow return of land are funny as well, because the main guilt lies with the local Polish politicians who have controlled that area for almost two decades.

Actually, the real tension in Warsaw-Vilnius relations is due to the tension in the head of Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, although some guilt can be shared by Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis, stated Audrius Baciulis, former spokesman for Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius in 1999-2000, in his article in the Lithuanian magazine Veidas, where he quoted unnamed sources close to the Polish diplomatic service. The Warsaw-Vilnius conflict started in 2009 when NATO elected its new secretary general. It was almost a consensus reached by NATO countries that Anders Fogh Rasmussen, from Denmark, should be elected the new NATO secretary general.

However, Sikorski also wanted that post. Emanuelis Zingeris, then deputy chairman (now the chairman) of the Lithuanian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, and Azubalis, then chairman of the same committee, stated out of the blue to Poland’s media that Lithuania will support Sikorski’s candidacy because Poland is Lithuania’s strategic partner. However, Lithuania, obeying the opinion of the absolute majority of NATO allies, gave its vote to Rasmussen. Sikorski took it as a personal insult, and he is an extremely venegeful person, according to Veidas’ sources, who, due to his character, asked to remain anonymous.

According to Veidas, Loreta Zakareviciene, who last fall was appointed to be Lithuanian ambassador in Warsaw, waited in vain for months to meet Sikorski – such a meeting is a must, according to diplomatic protocol. Finally, she got an invitation from Sikorski’s office for such a meeting for Feb. 17 – Sikorski’s office explained that the Polish foreign minister “forgot” about his president’s trip to Vilnius on Feb. 16 – during such a trip the Polish president should be accompanied by the Lithuanian ambassador in Warsaw, according to diplomatic protocol. However, the sources in Warsaw told Veidas that Lithuania is not something exceptional on Sikorski’s hate list: some Balkan diplomats wait more than a year for their first meeting with Sikorski. According to Veidas’ sources, Sikorski is liked by people and the media due to his PR activity, but he is disliked by Poland’s political elite due to his psychotic character – this is why the Civil Platform, the ruling political party in Poland, nominated the not so popular Komorowski to run in the recent presidential elections, when the charismatic Sikorski was heavily defeated during his party’s primaries. According to Veidas, Sikorski is known as a big fan of using state money for his personal needs, as well as being an undiplomatic person who, for example, told his colleagues that Barack Obama has Polish roots because his grandparents in Kenya used to eat Polish missionaries.

If Sikorski would really care about Lithuania’s Poles, he would help in the case of Alicija Cudak, a Lithuanian citizen of Polish origin. She accused the personnel of the Polish embassy in Vilnius of demanding sexual services from her. According to Cudak, she refused to have sex with Polish diplomats and, because of such refusal, was not allowed to enter the embassy where she worked as a secretary. She was fired for truancy. The Lithuanian legal institutions did not send the case to court because of the Polish Foreign Ministry, which pointed to the diplomatic immunity of the accused. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg punished the state of Lithuania with a 10,000 euro fine for such a Polish Foreign Ministry-friendly position.

The current relations between Lithuania and Poland are still kept in good shape only due to good relations between Grybauskaite and Komorowski, as well as the prime ministers of both countries, Kubilius and Donald Tusk. Unfortunately, Komorowski speaks only Polish, unlike Sikorski, who earlier lived in the UK. Komorowski is also a less ambitious politician than Sikorski. These are the reasons why Sikorski is the main factor in Polish foreign policy now. Komorowski invited the Lithuanian president to attend the meeting of presidents of the Central European States, scheduled at the end of May in Poland. Grybauskaite probably will go there, although Lithuania now considers itself, and is considered by its closest European allies, i.e. the Baltics, Scandinavia and the UK, as a Nordic country, not Central European.