POLAND: Lech Walesa has announced his resignation from Solidarity, the Polish trade union he founded 25 years ago which spearheaded the anti-communist movement in central Europe.
Mr Walesa (61) an electrician, Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Polish president, said he had "no regrets" about his decision to leave next August after cutting the organisation's quarter-century cake.
"I have the feeling that I am increasingly less needed," Mr Walesa said on Polish television, adding he had little in common with the generation now leading the union. "We've grown apart. We are no longer a good team. I have taken the decision that we have to separate. We will do it without any bitterness."
But current Solidarity leaders are sceptical of Mr Walesa's announcement, suggesting diplomatically that it is just a publicity stunt.
"Lech Walesa has always been a symbol for this movement, a person to show the way, that's clear," said Andrzej Matla, co-ordinator of Solidarity's international department, in Gdansk yesterday. "But as a trade union we have our own agenda now, although there is a place for Lech Walesa as a symbol, as a father. It's his own decision if he decides not to pay his union dues or not."
Mr Walesa was one of the strike leaders in the Gdansk shipyards in northern Poland in 1980. The protests against rising food prices spread around the country, forcing the Polish government to agree to the demands of Solidarity (Solidarnosc in Polish) for the right to form free unions and the right to strike.
The organisation officially came into being in September 1980, backed by intellectuals and the Catholic Church. But a year later, with over nine million members, Solidarity was outlawed and Mr Walesa imprisoned along with other leaders after the declaration of martial law by Gen Jaruzelski. Mr Walesa was released in November 1982 and received the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.
He was a key member of the round table talks that led to the transition to democracy. He became Poland's first freely elected president in December 1990 but failed in his re-election bid five years later, having become a figure of scorn in Poland for his erratic politics and less-than-statesmanly airs. He continues to be honoured abroad - Time magazine considered him one of the 100 most important people of the century.
The union's political wing, Election Action Solidarity, led the previous coalition government in Poland but was defeated in the 2001 general election and swept into the political dustbin. The Solidarity trade union now has around 1.5 million members.
Mr Walesa remains honorary president, but has little to do with the union. He returned to the headlines in recent weeks after starting legal action against the fundamentalist radio station Radio Maryja for accusing him of being a communist collaborator in the 1970s. A special court cleared Mr Walesa five years ago of any involvement with the secret police.
