Thaindian News

Berlin, April 10 (DPA) Governments around Europe voiced shock at the deaths of President Lech Kaczynski and other senior Polish officials in the Smolensk plane crash Saturday, with past friction all but forgotten.
The mood was grave in Russia and Germany, the two neighbours which many Poles often view with suspicion. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was to record a special address of sympathy to the Polish people, his spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, said in Moscow.

“Along with every other Russian citizen, I learned of this terrible tragedy with a deep and sincere feeling of sympathy,” the Russian president said in an initial statement.

He appointed a special commission headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to investigate the crash of the Polish plane at Smolensk in western Russia. Some Russian television channels played sombre music while reporting the disaster.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel, said: “This is a political and human tragedy for Poland our neighbour.”

Describing Kaczynski as a “combative European” who had loved his country, she said: “We in Germany will miss him too.”

Kaczynski was a controversial figure in the European Union, where his abrasive style and undiplomatic language raised many hackles.

Many reactions alluded to both Kaczynski’s pugnacious fights for what he believed were Poland’s best interests and the bonds that were forged when foreign politicians had got to know him better.

“Poland has suffered a dreadful loss,” said German President Horst Koehler, adding that Kaczynski had spent his life fighting for a free Poland. Like Merkel, he spoke of the friendship that had developed with Kaczynki and his wife, Maria Kaczynska, as guests at their home.

Kaczynski, his wife, and officials including the heads of Poland’s general staff and its central bank, were killed when their aircraft hit trees in foggy weather near Smolensk on Saturday morning.

Top European Union officials mourned the deaths. “This is an unimaginable catastrophe in Europe,” said the president of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, himself a Pole, in a statement.

“I respected in him a very determined Polish patriot who at the same time was very committed to our European Union and to the values of freedom and solidarity,” the head of the EU’s executive, Jose Manuel Barroso, said.

The crash was a “tragedy for Poland”, said NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who sent his “most profound condolences”. Poland joined NATO in 1999.

In Britain, Queen Elizabeth II expressed her “deepest sympathy” to Polish government and people. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: “I think the whole world will be saddened and in sorrow.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy praised Kaczynski as a “dedicated opponent of totalitarianism and a defender of democracy and freedom,” adding that France had lost a friend who had been deeply committed to better relations.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus said he was “shaken, shocked and saddened” by the deaths and said, “I personally lost a genuine friend.” He and Kaczynski were close allies in Central Europe, where they shared a dissident view about the functioning of the EU.

Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic offered condolences to his northern neighbour “in this crushing moment”. Speaking for another neighbour, Lithuania, President Dalia Grybauskaite voiced “her deepest condolences to the entire Polish nation”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Kaczynski had been a leader who “led the opening of a new page in the relations of the Jewish and Polish nations”.

Pope Benedict XVI sent a condolence message to Poland, speaking of his “deep pain” at the deaths.

It fell to a former Czech president, Vaclav Havel, to warn of the danger ahead if Poles seize on the idea that Kaczynski was murdered. Havel forecast that speculation rather than facts about the cause of the accident might influence developments in Poland.

“That speculation will influence the elections,” he said, predicting some Poles would see an analogy to the 1943 plane-crash death of Wladyslaw Sikorski, Poland’s premier-in-exile. Some believe that Sikorski’s plane was deliberately brought down.