GB No. 3(14)/94
The Czorstyn Dam has been under construction for 30 years, and a protest called "Dam the Dam" has been going on for 5 years. One of the means of opposing the dam was blockades preventing the drivers from supplying it with materials. In July, 1992, during one of the blockades, a tragic accident happened. Leslaw Pachacz, a driver of a truck which was carrying sand, ran into a group of protesters who were sitting on the road. He injured Adam Boryslawski seriously by crushing his foot. Another protester, Katarzyna Makiewicz, had both her legs hurt.
After a year and a half, in November of 1993, the trial of the driver started in the District Court for Kraków-Śródmieście. The driver was charged with article 145, clause 1 and 2, e.g. causing serious injury through breaking traffic rules. During four trials the driver did not plead guilty, and his defender tried to prove insistently that the protesters were "hooligans and drug addicts". The testimonies of both the protesters and witnesses for the prosecution -- people who were working at the dam -- denied the defender's statements. The blockaders were not aggresive. In fact, they were the objects of aggression -- they were thrown into ditches, had water poured on them, and were finally run over by a truck.
The trial ended in May, 1994. Lesław Pachacz was convicted of injuring Katarzyna Makiewicz deliberately through transgressing necessary intervention(!). Adam Borysławski's qualifications for subsidiary accuser were cancelled because he had failed to appear in the trials. Although the evaluation of Lesław Pachacz's act had been tightened, the court did not administer justice(!). In the face of such a surprising verdict the prosecutor of the Nowy Targ District and the subsidiary accuser put in an application to review the trial and change the verdict so that the driver could be sentenced to a one-and-a-half-year imprisonment with suspended execution within four years and fined 10 million zł. Mrs. Elżbieta Warcholik-Kubas, who was Katarzyna Makiewicz's solicitor, proved that the driver had not acted in self-defense as the verdict stated. She emphasized that the protesters had had noble intentions and that the driver behaved brutally and exceptionally irresponsibly.
A new verdict was pronounced. Lesław Pachacz was convicted of causing an accident unintentionally, sentenced to a one-and-a-half-year imprisonment with suspended execution within three years, fined 6 million zł, and obliged to return attorney's costs. Besides, the court stated that both sufferers had been taking part in the same event, and Adam Borysławski had a right to compensation although his qualifications for subsidiary accuser had been canceled. It is proper to add that the review trial, contrary to the court of the first instance, judged the protest positively, emphasizing that Lesław Pachacz's choice, which was nothing more than a brutal execution of his right to drive a truck while not taking care of someone's right to live, deserves to be condemned.
Anna Basiaga
translated by Jacek Iwański
On January 19, 1994, officials from the Ministry of Health held a press conference and a meeting with people who lived in the rural area near the collapsed radio broadcasting tower in Gšbin [Editors Note: The tower in Gšbin was the tallest broadcasting tower in Europe until it collapsed two years ago. It enabled official Polish radio to reach almost everywhere in the world. Broadcasts from the tower provided an important source of information for Polish emigrants, especially in the former Soviet Union]. The officials stated authoritatively that radio wave emissions are harmless. However, medical examinations revealed that only one out of every two men and women in the area were in good health. Local people felt indignant at the statement that the tower had not been damaging to health. What is noxious, then, when so many people are ill? The rate of health problems was lower before the tower was built.
Studies of a control group revealed a similar state of health, so our scientists draw the conclusion that the radio waves near the tower were not responsible for the health problems. Were they right? This is not the place for a detailed discussion. But it is worth mentioning that at present, the level of electromagnetic waves in the atmosphere is alarming more and more environmentalists and professionals. EM waves do not only occur near the broadcasting tower -- they are everywhere, and that is why they are generated. However, the EM field is particularly strong near the tower. People seem to live in a stream of energy, which produces an electric current in the human body. Isn't that a slowly working electric chair?
Everyone should ask themselves this question, especially doctors, officials from the Ministry of Health, and members of the commission mentioned above. The research material should be verified because no method is perfect. In Konstantynów, only 40% of the people from the representative sample reported for tests. This could have distorted the picture, and it is possible that figures which show the noxious effects of EM waves lie within measurement error. The error was not estimated in the research material. The conclusion that the tower is not harmful is absurd and does not have solid scientific basis. Even if the conditions for testing the control group and the group from Konstatynów had been ideal, the final results show only some health parameters -- not the influence of the tower, because both groups were under its influence! The only difference was the strength of the EM field. Are scientists able to state which EM fields are harmful and which are not? The West has been spending a lot of money on such research but has yet to draw such a conclusion!
If we want not sampling but scientific research, it should be carried out precisely and conclusions should be made carefully, because someone can use them as a reason for building various dangerous structures. Take some titled people for example - didn't they provide norms and opinions for certain industrial structures? And now there is environmental disaster and poor health there, as in the Konstantynów case.
On April Fool's Day, an announcement from the Ministry of Health together with the Ministry of Environmental Protection informed people that the tower in Konstantynów, when rebuilt, would be supplied with power by wind power stations in Holland, not by Polish high-sulphur coal-fired power plants. The wind power, which would be transported in fuel tanks, would not only be harmless, but restorative as well. Besides, this will provide another reason for building the West-to-Warsaw highway through Konstantynów. The highway would then help in transporting both the wind-generated power and the crowds of visitors, who will pay to have "energetic baths" under the highest tower in the world. Local people have already started to fight for the rebuilding of the tower and the establishment of a health resort. Others are planting pear trees for domestic and foreign visitors. (Pear trees had been cut because they were producing static electricity.) Officials and scientists who help in the rebuilding will have priorities all the more because it will be possible to cure more than just somatic illnesses there. The only disadvantage is the air from the Petrochemia oil refinery in Płock, but gasmasks will be provided.
Marian Kłoszewski
reprinted from Zielone Brygady June '94
translated by Jacek Iwański