TIRANA, June 18 – Albania has honored Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the first non-communist Prime Minister in Poland and the whole of the Eastern Europe with a bas-relief by Albanian sculptor Muntaz Dhrami.
The bas-relief was unveiled this week at one of the key streets in Tirana in a visit by Polish Culture Minister Malgorzata Omilanowska.
Speaking of bilateral cooperation, Albanian Culture Minister Mirela Kumbaro quoted the late Polish politician Mazowiecki when she said “Culture even though the last thing in governments’ agenda, is the one which precedes the integration of European countries.”
Tadeusz Mazowiecki was a Polish journalist and Solidarity official who in 1989 became the first noncommunist premier of an eastern European country since the late 1940s.
Within a few months, his cabinet changed the political system, enacted civil and political rights, a multi-party system, changed the national emblem and the name of the state. Mazowiecki’s cabinet was supported by 82 percent of Poles, while just two percent were against it.
“I will seek to form a government capable of working for the benefit of the society, the people and the State,” said Tadeusz Mazowiecki in his first speech to Parliament on 12 September 1989 after his appointment, a breakthrough moment in Poland’s history, says a statement distributed by the Polish embassy in Tirana.
Mazowiecki stressed that rebuilding the economy will benefit Poland and the entire European community. “Europe is a unity. It includes not only the West, but also the East,” he said in a speech.
“We shall draw a thick line between the present and the past. We shall only be responsible for what we have done to pull Poland out of its current state of collapse. I realise that for my compatriots the most important question today is whether things will get better. This question is up to all of us to answer.
Born in 1927 in Płock, Mazowiecki was an active participant and one of the architects of Poland’s most important historical events.
In addition in 1992, appointed Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights for the Former Yugoslavia, Mazowiecki resigned in protest against inactivity of the great powers and published a report on human rights violations by all sides of the conflict.
He died on 28 October 2013.
“A man who had the courage to act wisely during Poland’s crucial moments has died. We say thank you,” said Polish President Bronisław Komorowski, who appointed Tadeusz Mazowiecki his advisor in October 2010. “Mazowiecki was one of the founding fathers of our freedom and independence,” added Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski speaking to the Polish media.
