Janine Wedel - Shadow Elite - How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market

Rywingate’s chief protagonist is Lew Rywin, the famous film producer whose credits include Schindler’s List and The Pianist . Rywin is well known to have ties to Ordynacka and the “group of power holders,” which included the prime minister, Leszek Miller, also head of the SLD and a former Communist Party apparatchik. At the center of the second group was Adam Michnik, a well-known historian and European intellectual, and legendary member of the Opposition during the communist period. He had been a key participant in the Round Table discussions. Michnik was then (and remains) editor in chief of Gazeta Wyborcza , at the time the largest circulation Polish daily newspaper. The paper is owned by Agora, a powerful private company, some of whose leaders had been engaged in illegal and risk-laden underground publishing enterprises during the last decade and a half of communism.

The essence of Rywingate was an attempt to privatize the legislative process governing the ownership of the Polish media. In 2002, the government proposed a draft amendment to the Act on Radio and Television, which had been signed into law ten years earlier; the amendment would have prohibited national newspapers from getting a license for national broadcasting. At stake for the parties involved was whether Agora would be allowed to expand its newspaper empire to launch a nationwide television station. One reason for the amendment was to synchronize the law with EU regulations in preparation for Poland’s 2004 entry into the Union. While the matter was under discussion, a series of curious events unfolded, including unauthorized manipulation of the actual text of the amendment. Suffice it to say that, by the time l’affaire Rywingate was finally put to public rest circa 2004, a parliamentary commission had spent months interrogating witnesses in hearings televised live and gavel-to-gavel on two national networks, and Lew Rywin had been sent to prison. National dirty laundry had been aired, sending shock waves throughout society, as much or more than Watergate did in the United States some thirty years earlier. 35

The affair was publicly exposed in December 2002, when it was revealed that, during the previous July, Rywin reportedly floated the suggestion to Wanda Rapaczynski, chairwoman of Agora, that it would be possible to influence the drafting of amendments to serve Agora’s interests. Rapaczynski informed Michnik about the conversation. One week later, Michnik invited Rywin to his office—why he did this is still a matter of speculation—and secretly tape-recorded their conversation. (The tapes were later judged to be authentic.) During the meeting, Rywin told Michnik that he had been sent by a “group of power holders,” and hinted (without stating explicitly) that Prime Minister Miller was backing the group’s effort to offer wording in the legislation that would enable Agora to become an instant conglomerate. In exchange, Agora would pay $17.5 million to the SLD and support Rywin’s candidacy for the chairmanship of the new television station that would emerge from the deal. More informal meetings with various participants followed.

Things got only murkier. When Agora (allegedly) did not immediately jump at the (allegedly) attempted deal, the actual text of the amendment mysteriously underwent 180-degree alterations, once several times in one day—sometimes allowing, sometimes making it impossible for Agora to embark on a nationwide television enterprise. The amendment was changed by midlevel functionaries, one of whom worked for Czarzasty’s Radio and Television Council, another for the Ministry of Culture, whose former boss—former deputy minister of culture and reputedly a member of the group of power holders—was now chief of staff of Prime Minister Miller’s cabinet. While none of these people were legally authorized to put their hands on the legislation, they apparently tampered with its actual wording—after the document had been signed off on by the executive branch and was ready for parliamentary ratification, and no one had the legal right to change it. The tampering was discovered during a routine check by a conscientious bureaucrat in the government office that reviews final documents before sending them to parliament.

The parliamentary commission that was formed to get to the bottom of what happened questioned dozens of people, conducted four “confrontations” (during which people whose previous statements did not jibe with one another were interrogated in each other’s presence), and drew up several thousand interrogation protocols. Among those questioned were Miller and several of his cabinet ministers; Kwiatkowski, Czarzasty, and people working for them; the marshal of Poland’s Senate; and numerous journalists and lawyers. So were the unfortunate underlings who had physically changed the wording of the Act. One viewer described their reactions as she watched them being questioned:

Suddenly, you are being placed under the eyes of the cameras, with the whole country watching you while you are answering questions during an investigation about corruption and bribery. And all you probably did was to delete two single words from the draft of the Legal Act (or add them at some stage, because these two words kept on appearing and disappearing, as if by magic). You either deleted or added them because you were told to do so. And now the commission is asking you about who gave you the instructions to do this, but there were no instructions! Don’t they know that if your superior tells you to do just this (delete or add two words), that is what you do? You don’t ask for any written instructions. It’s none of your business why they want these words out at this particular hour, and back again at some other time of the day. They know something that you don’t need to know, and they know it from someone who “holds power” or is close to those who “hold power”—whoever that might be. But it’s not you. And now you are sitting here, having to answer questions. If you give the wrong answer (which has absolutely nothing to do with whether it is true or not), you might lose your job and might not be able to find another job. You might ruin your whole career.

These witnesses were frightened, terrified. Not frightened because someone might kill them. Frightened because somewhere out there (maybe even among the [parliamentary] commission members themselves), are people connected to this “group that holds power” who had initiated a process during which people like Lopacki and Galinska [two midlevel employees who made technical changes to the legislation] had to just make a simple move, a single simple move, that was just that [i.e., simple] to those “who hold power”—but that could completely ruin the lives of Lopacki and Galinska. 36

Contrast this with our viewer’s assessment of the comportment of members of the group of power holders before the same commission:

All their performances have one striking thing in common. All of these witnesses behaved during the hearings as if they did not regard the commission as having any authority over them, and even demonstrated their deep contempt for the commission. They treated the fact that they had to show up for hearings as an extremely irritating and annoying process they are being forced to go through.

Particularly telling, our viewer reports, was the attitude of Janina Sokolowska, head of the legal department of Czarzasty’s National Radio and Television Council, and connected to the group that holds power:

Janina Sokolowska’s behaviour during the confrontation gave a very clear impression that it is not the commission’s business to keep on pestering her about these things . . . Sokolowska non-verbally seemed to communicate the message that: “It’s none of your business, this whole thing is a farce, and after it’s over we will all return to the normal way in which things are done.”