Poland renowned leaders oppose new vetting

WARSAW, Poland, April 26 (UPI) -- Two respected Polish politicians have refused to take part in a new program to prove they were not informants of the communist-era secret police.

Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Poland's first prime minister after the fall of communism in 1989, disobeyed rules ordering about 700,000 civil servants, teachers and journalists to sign again an oath declaring they did not collaborate with the former communist regime, the Serbian news agency Beta reported from Warsaw Thursday.

Mazowiecki, a leader of the anti-communist Solidarity movement in the early 1980s, this week argued he had already submitted three certificates saying he was not a communist informant.

Early this week, Bronislaw Geremek, a former Polish foreign minister and now a member of the European Parliament, turned down a Warsaw government demand that he undergo new vetting of his communist-era past.

European parliamentarians have voiced support for Geremek, opposing Polish government's plans to recall him.

The controversial law went into effect March 15. Many public jobholders were given two months to declare whether they collaborated with the former communist regime.