Poland’s New Government Breaks Into
NATO Intelligence-Gathering Centre And
Takes It Over
Sat 7:46 pm UTC, 19 Dec 2015 4
posted by Tapestry
EXTRACT – Macierewicz is the most controversial figure in the new government. The defence
minister has given credence to conspiracy theories about Jewish world domination and once
accused the Solidarity leader and godfather of Polish democracy, Lech Wałęsa, of being a
communist agent.
TAP – Has Poland worked it out that Putin was not behind the Katyn plane disaster that wiped
out the former anti-EU Polish government, and are now swinging against NATO? The brother
of the former President who died at the crash supports the new government.
Polish military police raid Nato centre in
Warsaw
New rightwing government moves to take
control of counterintelligence centre in attempt
to consolidate grip on power
The sealed entry to the Nato CounterIntelligence Centre of Excellence in Warsaw.
The sealed entry to the Nato CounterIntelligence Centre of Excellence in Warsaw. Photograph: Paweł Supernak/AFP/Getty
Julian Borger Diplomatic editor Friday 18 December 2015 17.21 GMT Last modified on
Saturday 19 December 2015 11.21 GMT
Polish military police have raided a Nato-affiliated counterintelligence centre in Warsaw in the
latest of a series of moves by the country’s new rightwing government to consolidate its hold
on power.
The raid took place at 1.30am on Friday at the temporary offices of the Nato Counter
Intelligence Centre of Excellence. According to the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, senior aides
of Antoni Macierewicz, the defence minister, accompanied by military police, entered the
building using a duplicate key.
The centre’s night staff called the director, Col Krzysztof Dusza, but he was prevented from
entering. A defence ministry spokesman said Dusza had not responded to an order to step down
from the post.
Any such change of management was supposed to have been a matter of consultation with Nato
and the Slovak government, which is a partner in the centre. Neither Nato nor Slovak officials
could confirm whether any such consultation had taken place.
The former Polish defence minister Tomasz Siemoniak told reporters: “Nothing like this has
happened in the history of Nato, that a member state attacks a Nato facility.”
The Slovak defence ministry said: “The Slovak side is following the situation in Poland very
closely. Intensive consultations at various levels are currently ongoing. We expect a thorough
clarification of the situation from our Polish partners.”
A Nato official said the raid was “an issue for the Polish authorities”, adding that the centre
had yet to be accredited by Nato.
However, its creation was the subject of a formal signing ceremony in the US at the end of
September attended by the Nato head of alliance transformation, General Jean-Paul Paloméros,
ministers from Poland and Slovakia, as well as representatives from eight other Nato members
sponsoring the institution.
Nato centres of excellence are not run directly under Nato command but are coordinated by the
alliance as affiliated bodies cultivating expertise.
A Nato statement on the signing ceremony said the centre would be “the primary hub of Nato
expertise in military counterintelligence”. The main facility in Kraków is due to be fully
operational and accredited next year, but while it was being completed, the temporary offices
were in Warsaw.
The raid represented an attempt by Macierewicz to wrest immediate control of the centre from
Dusza, who had been appointed to run it by Poland’s former centre-right government ousted in
October elections by the radical Law and Justice party.
Since then, the new ruling party has moved fast to put loyalists in charge of the intelligence
and security agencies, and had its nominees sworn in as constitutional court judges in the
middle of the night in violation of constitutional procedure. The party is also preparing a bill
that would open up senior civil service jobs to political appointments.
“It is becoming a sad rule these days that the Law and Justice party chooses night time to
introduce important decisions. Poles have bad memories of such incidents in the past,” said
Michał Kobosko, director of the Poland office of the Atlantic Council, a pro-Nato thinktank,
in a reference to communist declaration of martial law in December 1981.
“Poles are starting to makes jokes about what might happen the next night. But this incident is
not a joke. In 200 days from now Poland will be hosting a Nato summit in Warsaw. Polish
authorities should be extremely careful before undertaking any moves which might surprise
our Nato western allies.”
Macierewicz is the most controversial figure in the new government. The defence minister has
given credence to conspiracy theories about Jewish world domination and once accused the
Solidarity leader and godfather of Polish democracy, Lech Wałęsa, of being a communist
agent.
“This new government doesn’t take hostages,” said Eugeniusz Smolar, an analyst at the Centre
for International Relations, adding that he thought the raid had been ordered by Macierewicz
without consultation with the rest of the government. “They didn’t have to do this in this
manner, that will alineate Nato partners and will be damaging to Polish standing in Nato.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/18/polish-military-police-raid-nato-centrewarsaw?CMP=share_btn_fb
http://tapnewswire.com/2015/11/a-silent-coup-in-poland/