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6 The Krakow Post
P O L A N D
R E G I O N A L N E W S
World’s oldest man dies in
Ukraine, aged 116
A Ukrainian shepherd believed by some to
be the world’s oldest man has died at the age of
116, authorities in the western Lviv province announced
early this week. Grygory Nestor put his
longevity down to never having married: “If I had
had a wife, I would have been in a coffin long
ago,” he told AFP in a recent interview.
Nestor’s passport and birth certificate put his
date of birth as March 15, 1891, but he is thought
to have been awaiting confirmation from the
Guinness Book of World Records when he passed
away.
The Ukrainian media has claimed him as the
world’s oldest man.
He remained a shepherd until nearly his 100th
year, and could still read the newspaper without
glasses. He offered a spartan sampling of other
reasons for his long-life: a strict regime of no
cigarettes, light drinking and healthy food – but
also a routine of prayer and repentance.
Nestor died in the town of Stary Yarychiv.
“In the next world, all will be well,” he once
said. “And if that’s not the case, a lot of people
will run away.” (AFP)
Poland prepares withdrawal
from Iraq for October 2008
Poland’s new liberal government late last
week asked conservative President Lech Kaczynski
to extend the country’s mission in Iraq until
the end of October 2008, at which point it wants
a troop withdrawal.
“The government requests the extension of the
mission of the Polish military contingent in Iraq
to Oct. 31, 2008,” a government statement said.
“Polish troops and other personnel will carry
out tasks aimed at ending the mission,” it said.
Bringing Poland’s 900 troops home from Iraq
was a key manifesto pledge of Prime Minister
Donald Tusk’s liberal Civic Platform party, which
trounced the ruling Law and Justice party in parliamentary
elections in October.
The previous conservative government led by
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the president’s identical twin
brother, was intent on maintaining the four-yearold
Polish presence in Iraq despite widespread
public opposition.
Under Polish law, the president is the country’s
commander-in-chief and is responsible for
approving foreign operations. The current contingent’s
deployment to Iraq is due to finish at the
end of this month. (AFP)
Ukraine parliament approves
Tymoshenko as premier
Ukraine’s parliament early this week narrowly
approved Orange Revolution leader Yulia
Tymoshenko as prime minister, in the ex-Soviet
republic’s latest bid to escape months of political
turmoil. Deputies in the single-chamber Rada
voted 226-0 in favor of Tymoshenko, proposed by
pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko – the
absolute minimum for a vote to pass in the 450-
seat Rada. The opposition boycotted the vote. Tymoshenko
supporters cheered following her victory,
which came a week after a first parliament
vote failed to pass by just a single deputy.
On this occasion deputies voted one by one in
a show of hands to avoid a repeat of the previous
week when Tymoshenko’s coalition claimed that
tampering with the electronic system had been
responsible for her defeat. Dramatically underlining
divisions in this country of 46 mln people,
pro-Moscow opposition forces, who control just
under half of parliament, did not take part in the
vote. Tymoshenko rose to fame when she and
Yushchenko led the 2004 Orange Revolution protests
that forced a re-run of a rigged presidential
election victory by Moscow-backed rival Viktor
Yanukovych, who now heads the opposition.
Yushchenko won the re-run and appointed
Tymoshenko premier, but their alliance fell apart
shortly after. Ahead of the vote, the fiery Tymoshenko
accused the opposition of corruption and
said “they are petrified that... I will put order into
the state.” (AFP)
Martin
Pollack
wins
Angelus
Central
European
Literature
Award
for 2007
Urszula Ciolkiewicz
Staff Journalist
Martin Pollack is the winner of the Angelus
Central European Literature Award for
2007. The winning book is titled “Smierc
w Bunkrze – Opowiesc o Moim Ojcu”
(“Death in the Bunker – the Story About
My Father”).
Angelus is the most important award in
the field of creative prose translated into
the Polish language.
The award is presented on an annual basis
to writers from Central Europe whose
works undertake themes most relevant to
the present day, encourage reflection and
deepen the world’s knowledge of other
cultures.
It is directly connected with Wroclaw as
a city of intercultural dialogue, as it is the
place where people of various nations and
cultures have always been coexisting.
The members of the Angelus jury are:
Natalia Gorbaniewska (Russian poet, journalist
and translator of Polish literature),
Stanislaw Beres ( a literary historian, poet,
essayist and translator), Piotr Kepinski
(poet and literary critic), Julian Kornhauser
(poet, writer of prose and literary critic),
Ryszard Krynicki (poet, translator and publisher),
Tomasz Lubienski (playwright and
writer), Krzysztof Maslon (publicist, literary
critic) and Andrzej Zawada (literary
historian, writer for radio and editor).
This year’s laureate is an Austrian essayist,
publicist and translator. Martin Pollack,
born in 1944, who translated into the German
language all the books of Ryszard Kapuscinski,
the famous Polish reporter, journalist,
publicist, poet and photographer.
Pollack studied Slavic literature and
Eastern European history in Vienna and
Warsaw.
The honored book was written in 2004.
Pollack tells the story of his father, Dr. Gerhard
Bast, whose body was found in 1947
at the entrance to a bunker on the Austrian-
Italian border.
The investigation brings into light a terrifying
truth: Pollack’s father was a war
www.isaf.wp.mil
Military contingent in
Partnership for Peace
international program
Joanna Zabierek
Staff Journalist
One of Poland’s top priorities after independence
in 1989 was NATO membership.
But being a member of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization is a two-edged sword.
On the one hand, it gives Poland military
security that it has never had before. NATO
rules say that if one member is attacked, all
members will go that country’s defense.
But on the other hand, membership means
that Polish troops must participate in NATO
missions abroad. The alliance’s Partnership
for Peace program sends troops overseas
to deal with threats such as terrorism, proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction
and energy security. Polish troops have
been deployed in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq
and in the Mediterranean. Afghanistan continues
to be the country’s biggest mission.
About 1,200 soldiers are there. The mission
is complicated, requiring a mix of fighting
and nation-building skills. NATO troops
in Afghanistan must not only try to ensure
security and stability but also help with reconstruction
of the country. The Nangar
Khel tragedy underscores how difficult it
has been for NATO forces to handle all facets
of their difficult mission in Afghanistan.
Seven Polish soldiers attacked the village of
Nangar Khel in August, killing six unarmed
civilians. They face charges that could put
them in prison for 12 years to life.
Although Polish troops had been in Iraq,
their experiences were not automatically
transferable to Afghanistan because different
Muslim countries have different rules of
conduct. The Nangar Kher case showed that
many soldiers don’t recognize that a knowledge
of and appreciation for local culture
and religion can be keys to the success of
their mission, analysts say. They maintain
that if the Polish soldiers at Nangar Kher
had had good working relationships with the
locals, the tragedy might not have occurred.
The Defense Ministry now recognizes that
troops not only need battlefield and militaryintelligence
preparation for an overseas mission
but also specialized knowledge about
the country where they are being deployed
and psychological preparation.
NATO’s post-Cold War overseas missions
are so-called “three-bloc” operations.
Soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan may have
to perform combat tasks. They also may
have to act as policemen. Plus, they become
involved in humanitarian activities.
They need to be proficient in all three
tasks – and that requires special training.
Lack of such training probably played a key
role in what happened in Nangar Khel, analysts
say. Although NATO has not offered
precise information on its plans for staying
in Afghanistan, indications are that the mission
may last until at least 2020. The exact
time frame is up in the air because it involves
not only how much military success
NATO is having but also winning the hearts
and minds of the population.
Peacekeepers are dependent to a large
extent on the goodwill of locals for success
in both their military and humanitarian missions.
That goodwill also helps ensure their
safety. A Nangar Khel-type breakdown can
destroy that goodwill.
The goodwill lesson applies not only to
Iraq and Afghanistan, but other places as
well. In January, Polish soldiers will be deployed
to Chad. Becoming peacekeepers in
that country’s civil war may be the most difficult
overseas mission Poles have faced.
About 150 Poles will be going to Darfur
as part of a multinational force whose task is
to try to stop four years of violence there.
The start of the Chad mission will come
a few months before Poland pulls its 897
troops from Iraq, fulfilling a promise that
Prime Minister Donald Tusk made in his
election campaign this fall.
DECEMBER 20-JANUARY 9, 2008
Poles hope
for a better
future
the krakow post
LUK Agency
Apparently the approaching end of
2007 brings out hope for the future
among Polish people.
According to a poll by the Public
Opinion Research Center (Centrum
Badania Opinii Spolecznej – CBOS),
Poles are extremely optimistic and
positive about ongoing changes in the
country and their own financial situation.
They have not been this enthusiastic
since 1998.
For the first time since the end of
the 1990s, the number of people who
consider the country’s situation to be
positive has exceeded 50 percent. Only
a fourth of those questioned expressed
an opinion to the contrary.
The judgment appeared to depend
much on the age, education and residence
of the respondents, with the
younger, better-educated and betterpaid
inhabitants of bigger cities generally
much more satisfied with the
direction the country is heading after
the October election. Among those
with the lowest income, a majority
considered the country’s situation unsatisfactory.
People’s opinions regarding their
own financial status have also improved,
with 36 percent of those questioned
considering it good, 42 percent
average and 22 percent bad.
The most significant changes in the
poll results, in comparison to the last
three months, regard the political situation
in Poland. Twenty-four percent
of respondents believed it to be good,
which is 8 points higher than a month
ago.
Even though more people were still
displeased with the politics (27 percent),
their number has significantly
decreased during the last three months.
The remaining 41 percent believe the
political situation in the country to be
average.
As for the economic situation, a
third of those questioned are satisfied
and a fifth consider it unsatisfactory.
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