Poland Commemorates Smolensk Anniversary Amid Internal Divisions and Diplomatic

April 11, 2011 Poland on Sunday marked the first anniversary of a plane crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others including dozens of top Polish officials, but the commemorative ceremonies were overshadowed by deep internal, political divisions as well as by tensions with Moscow over a memorial plaque erected at the crash site in Smolensk, western Russia. Thousands of Poles filled churches all over Poland to paid tribute to the crash victims, while the victims' families gathered early morning for a private service at Warsaw airport, where 96 coffins had been returned to Poland last year. At 8:41 am, the exact time of the April 10, 2010 tragedy Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, Prime Minister Donald Tusk and other government officials laid wreaths and lit candles at the foot of a Smolensk crash memorial at the Warsaw field cathedral of the Polish Army. Warsaw's Powazki Military Cemetery, where many of the crash victims have been buried, was the main site of Sunday's official ceremonies. At a multi-faith ceremony which was held there President Komorowski recalled the moment when "for many of us... the world collapsed". He called for healing, rather than recrimination, in the wake of the national tragedy. PiS opposition party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, twin brother of the late president, who has condemned the government's handling of the crash and aftermath, refused to attend the official events. He instead placed a wreath in front of the presidential palace. Thousands of PiS supporters held Polish flags, near a makeshift shrine decorated with a cross and a model of Poland's presidential Tupolev 154 plane broken in two. Kaczynski, like many Poles, has refused to accept the findings of the Russian investigation into the crash, which blamed the plane crew for deciding to land despite dense fog and warnings from Russian air traffic controllers. Sunday commemorations were also marred by the latest row caused by Russia's decision to replace a sign erected by families of the crash victims at the crash site at Smolensk. The original version of the commemorative plaque noted, only in Polish, that President Kaczynski and the other crash victims were on their way to Katyn to commemorate "the Soviet crime of genocide against prisoners of war, Polish army officers." On Saturday it was changed by Russian authorities for a shorter version written in Russian and Polish, which makes no mention of the reason for the Polish delegation's visit. The plaque now simply reads: "In memory of 96 Poles led by the president of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, who died in a plane crash near Minsk on April 10, 2010." The Russian move prompted a demand for an explanation from the Polish Foreign Ministry. "This was a very bad decision which has spoiled not only the current commemoration but also bilateral relations," a ministry spokesman Marcin Bosacki said. Moscow said the original plaque was put up without consulting the Russian authorities and was only in Polish, when it should have been in both languages. Today President Komorowski is due to arrive in Moscow where he will meet his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev and they will both visit the crash site and the Katyn memorial. He is expected to raise the issue of the memorial plaque again. Source: The Warsaw Voice