A busy news day for February 10, 1982
Starting with Secretary of State Alexander Haig said Wednesday that Western allies are in close agreement on condemning Poland’s martial law, but he voiced “great concern” over European plans to participate in a $25- billion gas pipeline project with the Soviet Union. Haig said the Reagan Administration still hopes the Europeans will reduce or cancel their plans. He made the remarks at a news conference in Madrid, where he spoke at the 35-nation Conference on European Security and Cooperation. He flew to Lisbon Wednesday afternoon for talks with Portuguese leaders. The Reagan Administration has consistently opposed the gas project.
But Haig’s statement appeared to reflect the administration’s frustration that the Europeans have not abandoned the project in the face of what the United States s considers Soviet instigation of imposition of martial law in Poland. The European involvement, especially the financing, is considered essential to the Soviet project. The European nations maintain they need the gas to meet their future energy needs.
From Gdansk – Miroslaw Krupinski, Solidarity’s deputy chief, is to be put on trial before a military court for organizing a national strike committee after martial law was declared, the Gdansk provincial prosecutor says. Krupinski, second only to chairman Lech Walesa in the hierarchy of the independent labor federation, will be the highest union official brought to trial for allegedly violating martial law decrees. Prosecutor Bronislaw Medejski spoke in response to questions from foreign reporters who were allowed to revisit Gdansk for the first time since martial law was imposed Dec. 13. Krupinski was one of the leaders of a sit-in strike at the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk, the headquarters of the strike movement in 1980 that resulted in the formation of Solidarity and the liberalization movement that martial law was imposed to check. He and other union leaders were arrested after police broke through the shipyard gates on Dec. 14 and crushed the strike.
And Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, has called on Arab countries along Israel’s borders to allow their territory to be used for guerrilla activity, the PLO said today. , While he mentioned no names, he apparently was addressing Syria and Jordan. Arafat said in Beirut that Israel was planning to carry out military strikes at selected Palestinian targets in southern Lebanon. The Associated Press reported from Washington today that sources said the administration persuaded Israel to postpone an attack on Palestinian bases in southern Lebanon while it appealed to Arab governments to persuade the PLO to respect the truce. Israel has massed troops and tanks on the Lebanon border since it annexed the Golan Heights in December and was poised to invade Lebanon, according to news, reports from the Mideast and Washington.
That’s just a sampling of what went on, this February 10, 1982 as reported by CBS Radio News.
