Poland: six years since Smolensk crash

Poles commemorate today the 6th anniversary of the 2010 Smolensk plane crash that killed 96, including the President.

Poland: six years since Smolensk crash Read more>>>http://eurone.ws/10v6D2
Posted by euronews on Sunday, April 10, 2016

Lech Kaczynski and his wife were part of a high-profile delegation of 96 who died when their plane crashed on landing in Smolensk in April 2010.

They were travelling to the area to commemorate the Katyn massacre of Polish nationals during the Second World War.

The wreckage of the plane and its black boxes are stiil in Russia, where they were sent for examination.

A delegation of almost 200 people including victims' families and Polish officials attended memorial services held at the crash site in Smolensk, western Russia.

In Warsaw, the commemorative events were held from 6 a.m. to midnight. Prime Minister Beata Szydło and PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, the dead president’s twin brother, attended a memorial ceremony at the Powazki military cemetery. Observances were also held in front of the Presidential Palace, where Kaczynski laid a wreath 

and unveiled a memoral plaque to his late brother.

Commemorations gathered crowds on the streets of Warsaw. According to Warsaw authorities, events attracted 22,000 people. 

In the southern city of Cracow, President Andrzej Duda, a former aide to the late president, and the late president's daughter, Marta Kaczynska placed flowers at the tomb of Lech Kaczyński and his wife, Maria, in a crypt Wawel Cathedral.

President Duda called on for mutual forgiveness over all things that were said in the context of the Smolensk tragedy. He stressed that unity is what Poland currently needs.

Law and Justice party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski unveils a plaque commemorating his twin brother, former Polish President Lech Kaczynski, as part of ceremonies marking the sixth anniversary of the Polish presidential plane crash in Smolensk, Russia.

However, Kaczynski, in a speech concluding Sunday commemorations in Warsaw, said that forgiveness is needed but should be preceded by confession and punishment. Kaczynski blamed the former government of Donald Tusk for going at great lengths to erase the Smolensk tragedy from memories of Poles. 

He said that there will soon be set up a special committee charged with a task of building a monument to Smolensk crash victims in Krakowskie Przedmiescie street, in the historic heart of Warsaw.

He also said that Poland needed to “establish the truth” about what happened six years ago referring to the recent decision of the PiS government to reopen investigation into Smolensk plane crash. Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz has appointed a new commission for the probe. 

Macierewicz has been one of the most prominent defenders of a conspiracy theory that the plane crash was a political assassination of the Polish president orchestrated by Russia, with the involvement of Germany and Polish moderates and that an explosive device was planted in the plane to bring it down. He has said that the three previous investigations - two Polish and one Russian, that blamed human error and bad weather were riddled with "mistakes" and "abnormalities”.

Support the Polish Nation appeal for an international investigation of the Smolensk 2010 air crash

Support the Polish Nation appeal for an international investigation of the Smolensk 2010 air crash

• https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/support-polish-nation-appeal-international-investigation-smolensk-2010-air-crash/tDSMBfXr

or 

• wh.gov/zMU

25,000 signatures needed by July 5, 2012

=======  OFFICIAL DEPARTMENT OF STATE RESPONSE =========

OFFICIAL DEPARTMENT OF STATE RESPONSE TOsupport the Polish Nation appeal for an international investigation of the Smolensk 2010 air crash

Response to We the People Petition on Smolensk Air Crash

By Phil Gordon

The White House has received your petition requesting support for an international investigation of the Polish Air Force Tu‑154 crash that occurred near Smolensk, Russia, on April 10, 2010. The people of the United States share your grief over this tragedy and regret the loss of life, including that of President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria. As President Obama stated on that terrible day, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the Kaczynski family, the loved ones of those killed in this tragic plane crash, and the Polish nation. Today's loss is devastating to Poland, to the United States, and to the world." During his trip to Poland in May 2011, President Obama visited the memorial to the victims at the Field Cathedral of the Polish Military in Warsaw, and expressed his condolences to the families of those lost in the crash.

In response to your petition, we note that the Polish and Russian governments each conducted their own investigations. In conducting their investigations, Poland and Russia agreed to follow the protocols of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, which establishes the standards and recommended practices for civil aviation accident investigations. Both countries published the results of their investigations, which are available at the links below:

The Polish Committee for Investigation of National Aviation Accidents report published on July 29, 2011 (.pdf)

The Russian Interstate Aviation Commission (MAK) report published on January 12, 2011 (.pdf)

The United States again expresses its deepest condolences to the Polish nation and all of the families affected by this tragedy.

Phil Gordon is Assistant Secretary of State for Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs

Wikileaks: Russia tried to prevent Kaczynski landing in Smolensk

According to a Wikileaks email, Russia refused landing permission to the doomed plane carrying President Kaczynski in April 2010, “to force him to miss a Katyn massacre memorial service.”


The email– released by the Wikileaks whistle blowing web site as part of its Global Intelligence Files series - shows a former KGB officer recruited by the Americans thought the Russians deliberately tried to stop President Kaczynski landing in Smolensk.

Smolensk air traffic control told the plane it was unsafe to land due to heavy fog, but the plane eventually tried to land at the airport in western Russian, however, killing all 96 on board.

But the secret email released by Wikileaks, sent by iphone to Reva Bhalla, director of analysis at the global intelligence company Stratfor Forecasting Inc, from Fred Burton, the company's vice-director of counter intelligence on 24 April 2010, quotes a former KGB agent, 'Comrade J'.

Comrade J told Stratfor, a company once described as a 'shadow CIA': “The Russians purposefully denied the aircraft the ability to land knowing that the Polish President would either force the pilot to land […] or the plane would return and not land at the location.”

Another Stratfor officer, Marko Papic, is also quoted as saying: “This was actually one of the theories that one of my contacts also gave me. But the intention was not to kill Kacynzki [sic] just make his life difficult by forcing him to land in Minsk and therefore miss the Katyn Massacre ceremonies set to begin in an hour from landing. But instead, the pilots tried to land anyways and crashed the flight.”

President Kaczynski was leading a party of military officers, politicians and family members of victims of the 1940 Katyn massacre to a memorial service in western Russia when the plane crashed on a foggy Saturday morning on 10 April 2010.

Earlier that week, Prime Minister Donald Tusk had been invited to an official Katyn remembrance service by the then Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, in memory of over 20,000 Polish officers murdered by Stalin's security forces in 1940.

President Kaczynski - who had tense relations with the Kremlin ever since the Russian-Georgian war in 2008, when the then Polish president gave strong support to the Georgian government - was not invited to the official ceremony, so had organised his own service, three days later.

Comrade J

Comrade J is thought to be Sergei Tretyakov, a Russian foreign intelligence officer who defected to the US in 2000. He died in October 2010.

What 'Comrade J' - described in another email as being “the highest rankling Soviet defector in history” - suggested to the Stratfor intelligence officers was that Russia was being deliberately obstructive to President Kaczynski in not letting him land the plane in western Russia and so forcing him to another airport so he would be late for the Katyn remembrance service that morning.

The email released by Wikileaks will fuel conspiracy theories, which claim that the Smolensk air disaster was not simply an accident but part of a campaign of revenge against President Kaczynski and his opposition to the Russian war with Georgia and other issues where he took a strong stand against the Kremlin.

WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, containing over five million e-mails hacked from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor in February this year.

===============================

Re: Comrade J on Polish Plane Crash

Email-ID	382437
Date	2010-04-23 03:11:33
From	burton@stratfor.com
To	reva.bhalla@stratfor.com, marko.papic@stratfor.com, secure@stratfor.com

I don't know how he knows, but WITSEC had him in DC to meet with foreign
intelligence officers during the nuclear summit.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Reva Bhalla 
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:50:03 -0400
To: burton@stratfor.com
Cc: Marko Papic; Secure
List
Subject: Re: Comrade J on Polish Plane Crash
Comrade J still has the ability to communicate with ppl who would know
something like that..?

Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 22, 2010, at 8:16 PM, "Fred Burton" wrote:

Interesting

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Marko Papic 
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:55:53 -0600
To: Fred Burton
Cc: 'Secure List'
Subject: Re: Comrade J on Polish Plane Crash
This was actually one of the theories that one of my contacts also gave
me. But the intention was not to kill Kacynzki, just make his life
difficult by forcing him to land in Minsk and therefore miss the Katyn
Massacre ceremonies set to begin in an hour from landing. But instead,
the pilots tried to land anyways and crashed the flight.

Fred Burton wrote:

The Russians purposefully denied the aircraft the ability to land
knowing that the Polish President would either force the pilot to land
based upon their own leadership analysis collection of the President's
m.o.; or the plane would return and not land at the location.

He claims purposeful act. His words not mine.

Reportedly, the Russians have similar plans (scenarios) for other
foreign leaders that can be pulled off the shelf if desired by
Putin/FSB.

Follow up questions welcomed.





--

Marko Papic

STRATFOR
Geopol Analyst - Eurasia
700 Lavaca Street, Suite 900
Austin, TX 78701 - U.S.A
TEL: + 1-512-744-4094
FAX: + 1-512-744-4334
marko.papic@stratfor.com
www.stratfor.com

Poland to Relive Doomed Presidential Flight

(By Marcin Sobczyk, wsj.com)

The Polish government on Friday will present its view of what led to last year’s plane crash in which President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others died in western Russia. Poland’s report on the catastrophe, likely to put part of the responsibility on Russian air controllers, may ruffle feathers in Moscow, which has put the blame squarely on the Poles.

Nuns look at the Sarcophagus of Lech Kaczynski and Maria Kaczynska in Kracow, Poland, on the first anniversary of the plane crashed that killed the Polish president and 95 others.

It will also be a landmark event ahead of parliamentary elections planned for October. The Polish public is increasingly divided over politics, and the plane crash is a crucial orientation point. Poland’s two main political parties, whose leaders once referred to each other as “dear friends,” now fight no-holds-barred and have accused each other of turning the coffins of the crash victims into political weaponry.

The crash of what formally was an airplane owned and operated by the government — not the president’s office — took place on the watch of Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his defense minister. It killed not only Mr. Tusk’s archrival, President Kaczynski, but also scores of politicians and the top commanders of the army, who were headed for an event commemorating a World War II-era massacre of Polish prisoners of war killed on Joseph Stalin’s orders in what was then the Soviet Union.

For Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the conservative opposition, the loss was deeply personal: The president was his identical twin brother. The surviving Mr. Kaczynski and his Law and Justice party have repeatedly said Mr. Tusk is trying to cover up his administration’s shortcomings, which they say may have contributed or even caused the crash. The government has dismissed this claim.

More than 15 months later, many of the circumstances of the crash are known, described by investigating committees both in Poland and Russia. The Russian-made Tupolev aircraft that carried the Polish president crashed on approach as its pilots — inadequately trained, as it turned out — tried to land despite extremely thick fog at a provincial Russian airport that lacked the instruments necessary for navigation in extreme conditions.

The equipment that Russian controllers had in their shabby control tower was inadequate for guiding the airplane. The controllers advised the pilots against landing, but they wrongly insisted that they were on the right path, according to earlier statements by the Polish government.

Just 20 seconds before the crash, one of the pilots said they were aborting the landing, but mysteriously the plane continued its fatal descent. According to leaks in the Polish press, automatic systems failed to react because they were unarmed or needed a counterpart that was missing at the airport, which the pilots may have not known. What happened in those final seconds will be the most interesting part of Friday’s report, which is expected to include the details of experiments performed with another Tupolev aircraft the Polish government still owns.

The view from Moscow has been clear for months — the pilots are exclusively to blame. They operated under pressure from their superiors, including the president and the air force commander, whom the Moscow-based Interstate Aviation Committee suspects of being intoxicated with alcohol while aboard. Poland disputed those findings, but didn’t come forward with its objections publicly until a day after Tatyana Anodina, the head of the Moscow-based committee, presented her theories, complete with a gruesome cockpit recording of the doomed flight’s final seconds.

There’s been nothing to prove the Kaczynski camp’s competing theories — about artificial fog or even a secret intergovernmental plot to kill the Polish president. But Mr. Kaczynski has more sensible arguments to use against his political rival. He will be keen, for example, to remind voters that more than a year after the crash, the Polish airplane’s wreckage is still in Russia, which has ignored the Polish government’s repeated requests to hand it over.

For much of the Polish public, Moscow’s line was a slap in the face, while the Polish prime minister’s response seemed belated. When Mr. Tusk finally spoke, few outside the country were interested in what he had to say.

It cost him a few percentage points of support at the time. His party’s ratings have since recovered and an opinion poll published Thursday shows his Civic Platform party, with 47% of respondents declaring their support, well ahead of Mr. Kaczynski’s Law and Justice with 30%. Even though Mr. Tusk’s party in the past won fewer-than-expected votes during actual elections, the prime minister may be confident of his re-election.

He faces an opponent mobilized by his personal tragedy and a public divided over an emotional issue. Friday will be a field day for both leaders.

Russia Hands Over to Poland More Documents on Smolensk Crash

Poland received from the Russian side, yesterday, some 3,900 pages of further documents on the investigation, run by the Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK), into the Polish presidential plane crash.

As the Russians have closed their investigation of the case this is the last part of documents to be passed to Poland.

Polish side is not satisfied with the set of data it received, with e.g. documents on procedures and functioning of Smolensk airport are lacking.

The files handed over to the Polish representatives by MAK on Monday include a technical manual and maintenance records of the TU-154 airplane.

Col. Edmund Klich, Polish representative in the investigation accredited to MAK says these are not all the documents that Polish experts asked for.

Another issue is that in spite of the fact that Poland has repeatedly called for tighter security at the crash site it turns out the wreckage of the TU 154 is neither protected nor even fenced off.

The Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and other 94 Poland’s top officials were killed in the plane crash at Smolensk, western Russia, due to heavy fog 10 April 2010.

Smolensk Memorial Cross Removed from Outside Presidential Palace

The wooden cross put up by scouts in front of the presidential palace to commemorate the late president Lech Kaczynski and other victims of the Smolensk plane crash was unexpectedly moved to the presidential chapel yesterday morning.

The cross will later be transferred to the nearby St. Anne’s University Church, Presidential Chancellery head Jacek Michalowski said at a press conference.

Major opposition party PiS found the move "scandalous", PiS MPs commented for PAP.

The cross, which appeared on Warsaw’s Krakowskie Przedmieście Street in front of the Presidential Palace a few days after the tragic plane crash on April 10 has, since then, come to symbolize the division of Polish society.

The inscription on a plate attached to the cross read, “This cross is an appeal from scouts to the authorities and society to build a monument on this site.”

Later, on July 10, the newly elected President Bronisław Komorowski had suggested that the cross should be moved from the front of the Presidential Palace to another, more suitable location.

But politicians from the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party and its leader Jarosław Kaczyński, the twin brother of the late president Lech Kaczyński, stood up to “defend” the cross.

Guards of honor were placed around the cross. Meanwhile, across the street, people started to collect signatures for a petition to remove it.
On July 21, it seemed that the problem would be resolved. “The cross was going to be transferred in a procession to a nearby St. Anne’s University Church The agreement was made between the President’s Office and church officials in Warsaw as well as scouting organizations. The date of the transfer was set at Aug. 3.

Polish officials however, had to call off the ceremony, as hundreds of people gathered there to stop the procession.

The city guards and police had to hold back crowds of “the defenders of the cross” trying to force a barrier across the street. Protesters demanded the cross remain until a permanent memorial to the crash victims is set up in its place.

After consultations with church officials Michalowski announced that the cross would stay at the palace, but did not say for how long.

On the night of Aug. 9, Krakowskie Przedmieście Street saw a demonstration of several thousand people protesting against the presence of the cross in front of the Presidential Palace. The demonstration, organized through Facebook, attracted mainly young people who tried to ridicule the “defenders” of the cross.

A PiS delegation turned up at the cross Aug. 10 in the morning to mark four months since the Smolensk crash. Jarosław Kaczyński, accompanied by a number of parliamentarians, placed wreaths and prayed at the cross for several minutes to the applause of the people gathered at the site.

The “cross defenders” have said they are going to hold vigil outside the Presidential Palace until a proper memorial is placed there.

Russia Gives Poland New Smolensk Files, More to Come

Poland's top military prosecutor Gen. Krzysztof Parulski received yesterday from the Russian investigators 11 more volumes of evidence on the April 10 plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 other people at Smolensk, western Russia.

The files include interviews with witnesses of the crash, photographs of the crash site, mobile phone video of its aftermath made by local residents, description of the victims personal belongings and forensic evidence from DNA tests.

We are providing everything that Poland is requesting, and the next hand-over of investigative material is likely to come soon, Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Zvyagintsev said.

Smolensk Memorial Plaque Unveiled

A marble plaque commemorating the victims of the presidential plane crash at Smolensk was unveiled on the wall of the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Aug. 12, by Head of the Presidential Chancellery Jacek Michałowski and Deputy Mayor of Warsaw Jacek Wojciechowicz, in the company of church and military representatives.

The brief, unveiling ceremony was announced only two hours before the event and right after the Warsaw Heritage Conservation Department agreed to the form of the plaque suggested by Presidential Chancellery.

The incription on the plaque reads: "In this place, next to the cross erected by Scouts, in the days of mourning after Smolensk plane crash in which 96 people were killed, among them President Lech Kaczyński with his wife and former President of Poland in exile Ryszard Kaczorowski", many Poles were gathering united in pain and concern for the fate of their country.

There will be another plaque unveiled in the Presidential Palace Chapel, in memory of the late Presidential Couple as well as the employees of the Presidential Chancellery and the National Security Bureau, Michałowski, told reporters.

It is still rather unlikely that the plaque will put an end to the recent political dispute over the commemoration of the crash victims. The defenders of the wooden cross standing in front of the Presidential Palace say they will not allow the government to remove it until it is replaced with a proper memorial.

Opposition party PiS Law and Justice had earlier announced at a press conference the appointment of an honorary committee for the construction of the monument.

Miller : Lack of Documents from Russians Slows Down Smolensk Investigation

Interior Minister Jerzy Miller, who heads the Polish commission for investigation of the Polish president's plane crash at Smolensk, Russia, told reporters yesterday that Poland has not yet received from the Russian side significant documents concerning the case.

Miller said that several weeks ago he applied to the Russian for a list of documents that would help his commission to continue inquiry into the causes of Smolensk crash on April 10 which killed all 96 passengers including President Lech Kaczynski.

Also, Edmund Klich the head of the State Commission for Aircraft Accident Investigations in Poland has been corresponding with the Tatyana Anodina, head of the Interstate Aviation Committee in Russia, on the same subject, but so far no further documents have been released by the Russians.

“This is slowing the investigation progress down”, Miller admitted, adding however that “knowing complex procedures effective in the Russian Federation he sees it only as a procedural delay”.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk told journalists he had asked Minister Miller, to tell Moscow that Poland categorically asks for the transfer of the required documents.

Poland Demands Russian Findings on Crash

(WSJ.com) WARSAW—Poland's government for the first time voiced official dissatisfaction with Moscow for what it said was a failure to share findings from its investigation into an April plane crash that killed Poland's president.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Monday said Warsaw has yet to receive documents it has requested and called on Russia to turn over "precise information" uncovered during its probe of the crash, near an airfield in Smolensk.

Mr. Tusk, using pointed language, said if the information isn't forthcoming he expected Moscow to provide "explanations of what kind of reasons make it difficult for the Russian side to transfer documents."

Russian officials have said the country has already handed over everything it has.

Frustration has mounted in Warsaw in the months since the disaster, which unsettled Polish politics and sent the country into a period of national mourning. Further friction over the investigation could threaten recent progress on mending relations between the two countries.

Mr. Tusk's government has promoted warmer ties with Moscow, a contrast with the more skeptical view of Russia—rooted in the country's Soviet-era subjugation of Poland—held by former President Lech Kaczynski, who was killed in the crash, and his conservative Law and Justice party.

Bronislaw Komorowski, the standard-bearer of Mr. Tusk's more liberal Civic Platform party, defeated Mr. Kaczynski's brother in the July election to choose his successor. But the crash has helped fuel a conservative grassroots movement. Right-leaning politicians and commentators have voiced suspicions about the Polish government's acceptance of Russian investigators' official findings.

Last month, Russia's deputy prime minister, Sergei Ivanov, was quoted by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS as saying: "There is nothing more to transfer. We have transferred everything there was to transfer."

Polish prosecutors have demanded that Russia provide information about the work of air-traffic controllers at the airport in Smolensk, as well as about airport equipment and Russian aviation procedures, according to a Monday report in the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza.

A transcript of cockpit conversations released by Poland showed that pilots of the doomed jet attempted to land in thick fog despite warnings from airport controllers and another Polish crew that had landed at the airport earlier that day. But controllers didn't decide to close the airport and divert the plane.

The Russian controllers ordered pilots of the Polish presidential jet to pull up just seconds before the plane struck trees and crashed into a ravine less than a mile short of the runway. Polish investigators have said they suspect faulty radar may have given the controllers imprecise readings of the plane's altitude.

Kaczyński: Cross Commemorating Smolensk Victims Must Remain in Front of the Palace

Jaroslaw Kaczynski Opposition PiS party leader, came out with some very strong language for his political rivals at a press conference, Friday, commenting the decision to remove the cross commemorating the Smolensk victims from outside the Presidential Palace.

The cross was placed there by Polish scouts in honor of the late President Lech Kaczyński, Jaroslaw’s twin brother, who died in the April 10 Smolensk plane crash tragedy along the First Lady Maria Kaczynska and 95 other high-ranking officials.

President-elect Bronisław Komorowski had recently suggested that the cross should be moved from the front of the Presidential Palace to another location, such as a cemetery or church.

Kaczynski said the cross should only be removed once a monument is put in its place.

Anyone who thinks otherwise, he added, is committing “a serious breach of morality.”

“Let Komorowski have the courage to say that he is on the same side as [Polish leftist politician Grzegorz] Napieralski and [Spain's socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez] Zapatero,” Kaczyński said, implying that President-elect Komorowski was anti-Church.

Families of Air Disaster Victims Demand Information From Russia

Families of the victims of April's Polish presidential plane crash have formed an association that is pressing the government to demand more information from Russia about the disaster.

The association is urging the government to press Russia to hand over the remains of the crashed plane to Poland, and has claimed that Polish investigators seeking information from Moscow about the crash are dependent on the goodwill of Russian officials, state broadcaster TVP reported.

"The investigation probing the cause of the catastrophe is sluggish, in violation of all ethical and humanitarian norms and standards," the association said in a statement.

Polish president Lech Kaczynski, his wife and scores of senior officials died when their plane crashed April 10 while coming in to land near Smolensk, western Russia, in one of the worst disasters in Polish history.