POLAND: THE NEW CONSULTATIVE COUNCIL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87R00529R000100080012-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 5, 2011
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: December 9, 1986
• Content Type: MISC

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/07/07: CIA-RDP87R00529R000100080012-3
NIO/EUR
9 December 1986
POLAND: THE NEW CONSULTATIVE COUNCIL
The formation of the long-awaited social advisory council does nothing
to alter the fundamental stalemate between state and society in Poland.
Indeed, with a membership even less impressive than had been expected, the
council is not likely to achieve the regime's minimal goals of lending a
measure of legitimacy to the government and its policies.
-- Walesa and most other opposition figures have dismissed the
council as a cosmetic body that does not represent Polish
society. The two former Solidarity leaders on the council are
widely seen as traitors to the movement.
Still, the inclusion in the council of several prominent lay Catholic
intellectuals and former Solidarity advisors lends some respectability to
the council, at least potentially. The key question is how far the regime
is prepared to go to breathe life into the new body.
-- Political pluralism is hardly on the regime's agenda, but
Jaruzelski does hope to use the council -- to legitimize the
so-called "normalization," mitigate economic austerity measures,
further divide the opposition, and affect a lifting of the
remaining US sanctions.
-- To achieve those ends, the regime must invest the council with
some influence and independence, while at the same time assuring
that it does not become a separate power center. Squaring that
circle has been the regime's dilemma since martial law.
Based on the Polish regime's track record so far, the prospects are not
encouraging for the kind of genuine national dialogue on which we have been
insisting.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/07/07: CIA-RDP87R00529R000100080012-3