ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 2, 1996 TAG: 9604020079
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WARSAW, POLAND
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
IT'S A SIMPLE case of financial necessity for the former Polish leader.
Denied a presidential pension, his bank accounts frozen, Lech Walesa goes back to the Gdansk docks today to take a job repairing battery-powered carts for about 650 zlotys - $260 - a month.
After five years as Poland's leader with a salary 10 times higher, he tried to put a bright face on his predicament.
``I like working,'' the 52-year old former president said in a telephone interview Sunday night, hiding the bitterness that has been audible in his voice since Polish voters turned him out of office in November.
Walesa's return to the shipyard is just one landmark in an eventful few days for Poland. Twelve former communist officials, including the last communist leader, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, went on trial Thursday on charges of illegally suppressing 1970 strikes in which 44 people died and 1,000 were injured.
In a holdover from the communist laws that Walesa tried to repeal as president, he has a right to take up his old job whenever he wants it, even though the Gdansk shipyard faces bankruptcy because of its failure to cut staff and employee benefits.
But Walesa apparently will be taking some time off soon. On April 12, he is scheduled to be the guest speaker at an invitation-only event at Poplar Forest, Thomas Jefferson's retreat in Bedford County, Va. Walesa's speaking fee at Poplar Forest has not been disclosed.
Walesa, the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said he was taking the job because he needs money.
His bank accounts are frozen in a tax investigation; and while Polish law provides an official car and a bodyguard for former presidents, it gives them only a ``farewell bonus'' of three months' salary, which ran out at the end of March.
Walesa's fate seems to have paralleled that of Poland. In 1980, he and the Solidarity trade union led a wave of strikes and protests. He suffered under martial law, and helped topple the communist regime in 1989.
As president, Walesa helped push through capitalist and democratic reforms, but participated in the feuds that tore apart the Solidarity movement.
Former communists regained parliamentary power in 1993, and Walesa spent his last presidential years battling the legislature and successive governments. His popularity plummeted, and he was replaced by Aleksander Kwasniewski, a youthful minister from the last communist government.
The issue of pensions for former presidents was overlooked until November, when polls indicated Walesa would lose his office.
His supporters proposed making him a senator for life, including a pension and immunity from prosecution, but wanted those rights only for popularly elected presidents. The leftists who dominate Parliament insisted that the law cover all former presidents, including Jaruzelski, who was chosen by Parliament.
Parliament is to vote on the pension proposal this month, and the expected passage should ease Walesa's money worries.
The current president, Kwasniewski, said Friday, ``Walesa should receive permanent pay so he can engage in public activity.''
Walesa's bank accounts have been blocked since December, when a Gdansk tax office said he had failed to pay taxes on $1 million he received in 1989 from Warner Bros. for the movie rights to his life story.
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: headshot of Walesaby CNB