CPA Responds to Rep. Eliot L. Engel Statement on President Duda’s visit to the White House

June 22, 2020

We, the Polish Americans for truth and justice, condemn the demagogical statement issued by Congressman Engel on reported visit by Polish President Andrzej Duda to the White House.  This statement is based on misrepresentations of facts, vilification of the Polish people, and ethnic prejudice.

We object to calling President of Poland Andrzej Duda “the leader who has demonstrated autocratic tendencies.”  President Duda was elected in direct, free and fair democratic elections by the Polish people.  Accordingly, he represents the will of majority of the Polish people, and as their duly elected representative deserves proper respect.

We strongly object to accusing President Duda and the Law and Justice Party of “undermining Poland’s judiciary.”  Unlike justice systems in other East European countries, the Polish judicial system has not been purged of judicial criminals, i.e., judges who committed judicial crimes towards Polish workers and members of the Solidarity movement during the 1981 Martial Law and thereafter.  Mr. Engel denies Poland the universal right to transitional justice that is afforded to all post-conflict societies all over the world!  Instead of welcoming Poland’ efforts to serve historical justice to perpetrators of judicial crimes towards Solidarity workers during the Martial Law period, he protects these judicial criminals by portraying transitional justice efforts as “autocratic tendencies.”

He also condemns the effort of Poland to purge Russian agents from key positions in the military and security forces by portraying these changes as “placing party loyalists in influential positions in the military,” thereby protecting the most dangerous Russian collaborators in Polish security structures.

Next, he claims that Poland sabotages independent media outlets.  While the meaning of the phrase is vague, it must be noted that anybody should be free to refuse contacts with those media which routinely engage in hate-mongering, spreading fake news and distortion of facts.

For example, TVN (sadly, American-owned), constantly attacks the Catholic Church, leads media onslaught against any efforts to investigate the Smolensk crash of 2010, stages provocations such as Hitler’s birthday party, with the purpose to use them to present Poland as anti-Semitic, and imposes the gender ideology on the Polish society by supporting LGBTQ parades and events that publicly desecrate religious figures, the Catholic church, and even the Polish Pope, John Paul II.  A great majority of the Polish society and the current government, exercising their essential democratic prerogatives, oppose such social engineering, and anyone’s right to do so must not be abridged.  In contrast, Mr. Engel, under the guise of defending democracy, brands such choices as “horrifying homophobic and anti-LGBTQ stereotypes”.

Upon piecing together all these accusations, Mr. Engel reaches out for the big stick, claiming that such policies “run counter to the human rights and values that America should strive to uphold.”  The fact of the matter is that Mr. Engel builds this scenario to make totally false but politically potent claims.  In contrast, CPA believes that the invitation of President Duda resulted from President Trump’s far more objective and balanced assessment of Mr. Duda’s merits as a leader of a nation steeped in the unsurpassed democratic traditions.

As Rep. Engel correctly noted, Poland is a close and valued ally of the United States.  The attack on the democratically elected leadership of the close and valued ally of the United States, resorting to highly emotional language, misrepresentations and distortions, is detrimental to the vital interest of the United States.  It is also irresponsible and unbecoming for the Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Representative Eliot L. Engel’s Statement can be found here:

https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-releases?ID=0D4F0EC3-FAA6-4ED7-896F-442B99C34ABE