Poland’s tragic history repeats

It’s being called the curse of Katyn. On Saturday, a plane carrying Poland’s president and dozens of influential people crashed killing all 96 on board.

They were travelling to Smolensk, Russia to honour the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Forest massacre where 20,000 Polish officers, intellectuals and others were murdered by Russian secret service during the Second World War.

Now as Poland goes into a week of national mourning, dinner tables theories are questioning whether the crash was an accident. Factually weak, these theories are a result of a similar incident that occurred in 1943, and Russia’s dislike for the Polish president.

The delegation on board Saturday’s flight included President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, the governor of the central bank, army generals, politicians, priests and a number of iconic Poles.

As relatives of the Katyn victims (who had travelled earlier by train) waited at the ceremony, news of a delay, then an accident trickled in. They soon realised they were commemorating one national tragedy with another.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was set to speak at the ceremony, laid flowers on the dead president’s casket at Smolensk airport. And even though his response has been exemplary, some Poles quietly wonder if he and Russia had anything to do with the cause of the crash.

As it stands, the pilot tried to land the plane in dense fog at Smolensk airport. After the second failed attempt, the air traffic controller advised them to give up and land at either Moscow or Minsk.

But the pilot ignored the warnings and on his fourth attempt crashed into the ground 200 metres short of the runway.

Many now believe that Kaczynski himself pressured the pilot into landing at Smolensk for fear of missing the ceremony.

Such a thing has happened before. He was reportedly furious after being refused landing permission in Georgia in 2008 meaning he had to make his way across the border by car from Azerbaijan.

On that occasion, he tried to pressure the pilot to land despite it being a war zone. However the pilot, who later received a medal for withstanding the pressure, decided it was too dangerous for the passengers.

At the time, a paranoid Kaczynski suspected Russian involvement because he was rallying support for Georgia’s anti-Russian President Mikheil Shaakishvilli. Due to this support and his own anti-Russian stance, Kaczynski and Russia have never gotten along.

In fact, Russia had already hosted an anniversary ceremony for the Katyn massacre on Wednesday to which Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk was invited, but not Kaczynski.

It was because of this that the Polish President had demanded a second ceremony on Saturday.

The plane they were using was a Tupolev 154 – an old but reliable Soviet-era aircraft which had just been serviced in December and refitted with new electronic and navigation equipment.

Fuelling the conspiracy is the fact that it was a Russian company that serviced it, and that Putin has decided to personally oversee the accident investigation as a gesture of friendship.

Although there isn’t a shred of evidence to suggest foul play, Poles are tempted to question it. Apart from their deceased President’s poor relations with Russia, a similar incident occurred nearly 70 years ago that has added to the curse.

In 1943, the Polish leader Wladyslaw Sikorski caused a break in diplomatic relations with Russia by condemning their refusal to allow investigations or accept responsibility for the Katyn massacre (until 1990 Russia had blamed the Nazis).

Three months later, his plane crashed just seconds after takeoff from Gibraltar airport killing everyone on board except the Czech pilot. It was revealed that a Soviet aircraft had been parked next to his unguarded plane, although an investigation concluded it was a technical fault.

In terms of Saturday’s crash, a team of over 50 investigators from Poland and Russia are currently deciphering the codes from the black box to establish exactly what happened.

Meanwhile, thousands of Poles lined the streets of Warsaw on Sunday to pay their respects to Kaczynski’s casket, in a memorial service led by his identical twin brother and former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Lech Kaczynski was not a popular political figure in Poland and was expected to lose the election in October.

But his death and that of the other 95 people on board may have united the country as they move on and try to bury the curse of Katyn once and for all.

By The Casual Truth

Photo – Deceased President Lech Kaczynski