Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 22, 1990 TAG: 9003222634
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/5 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Bush invited the Polish leader back to the White House for an unscheduled round of discussions after feting him Wednesday with full military honors and a state dinner.
Mazowiecki used the formal occasion to again press his insistence on a new treaty guaranteeing Poland's border. He also urged a new political structure to free Europe of military rivalry.
Earlier Wednesday Bush sought to assure Mazowiecki of U.S. support for Poland's demand that its current western border not be breached when the two Germanys unite.
Bush said "Poland must have a voice" in any talks with the two Germanys affecting the border question. The Germanys and the four victorious World War II allies have agreed to make room at the table for discussions affecting Poland.
Both in private talks and in a poignant toast at the state dinner, Mazowiecki stressed the issue's importance to Poles now emerging from "a long night of totalitarian oppression" under the Nazis and then communist rule.
Mazowiecki, a one-time Solidarity editor who last year became Poland's first non-communist prime minister since World War II, also had talks planned today with leaders of both houses of Congress as well as Vice President Dan Quayle.
At the state dinner, Mazowiecki invoked Alexis de Tocqueville's words about "the unstoppable march of democracy."
"Nowadays, we're witnessing an enormous acceleration of that march - in Nicaragua, Chile, even Mongolia, but most of all in Eastern and Central Europe," he said. "Democracy is a system which secures the freedom of the individual, the freedom without which no normal life is possible."
He recalled how Poland was "ravaged by the Nazi invasion" in 1939.
"Our people suffered more than any other on earth. Poland lost 6 million of its citizens, half of them Polish Jews," he said.
by CNB