
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 18, 1990                   TAG: 9004180105
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

POLISH OFFICIAL SEEKS U.S. HELP WITH CLEANUP

Outside technical cooperation and financial help are needed to restore an Eastern European environment ravaged by decades of dictatorships, Poland's deputy prime minister said Tuesday.

"The degradation of our environment and public health is a sad legacy," Deputy Prime Minister Jan Janowski said.

He appealed to the United States to consider "debt-for-nature" swaps under which past debts would be canceled and the local currency that would have gone toward repayment spent on pollution controls.

Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany are among the most polluted countries in the world.

The experience of communism has proved that "democracy and (a) healthy economy were of crucial importance for the protection of the environment," said Janowski.

"The disintegration of totalitarian systems creates conditions for international cooperation in a new, unprecedented dimension," he added.

This depends on whether Western countries "decide to make available new technologies to overcome the negative effects of global change . . . we deem it imperative to build new international alliances" to cope with such problems, Janowski said.

by CNB