Speech of member of the Sejm F. Yaremich in the Sejm

High Chamber! The Ministry of the Interior is that fortress where no air from outside reaches, where men with an old, outlived mentality sit on soft director's chairs. We are witnesses of events in life that run ahead of some laws issued by the Sejm: life moves forward! Yet all this does not concern those gentlemen, who have remained to this day faithful to the traditions of Austrian bureaucracy. In relation to us Belarusians and to the Ukrainians, the line of conduct was fixed back in 1920, after the partition of Belarus and the confirmation of the Treaty of Riga. This line can be expressed in a few words: that part of Belarus which was joined to the Republic must be swallowed, and everything Belarusian here, everything sacred to this Belarusian people, must be destroyed and polonized, despite the fact that to this day very many politicians, even among Polish society, say that Poland will not be able to swallow these lands and that their population must be reckoned with. Yet this does not concern the Ministry of the Interior at all. Now, gentlemen, the question of the national minorities of the so-called Eastern Borderlands is going beyond the borders of the Polish State and is coming before an international forum. I do not much hope that anyone will come and give us and secure for us the possibility of free cultural, social and political development, but we have come to one conviction: we asked, and now we

will not ask, but will take!

Turning to matters of administration, I must note that all Belarusian newspapers are being closed, and in this way: if the Government Commissioner, or of the city of Vilnia, dislikes a single word, a single expression in a newspaper, he closes it, or possibly confiscates it and sends the matter to court. The court acquits, but this is a burden for us, because we have no press of our own, because the whole time we suffer abuse. In this time six Belarusian newspapers have been closed and something like 60 issues confiscated. In no European state does this happen.

We see the same in relation to schools. I do not speak of schools in general, since that belongs to the Ministry of Education; yet the Ministry of the Interior plays a great role here, because all the teachers, who are the intelligentsia of our people, the creative brain of this people, suffer abuse and are forced to flee their land, to leave their native homes, to end up somewhere in foreign parts.

Our societies cannot wait to be legalized. Recently Belarusian priests submitted for legalization the statute of the Society of Belarusian Priests called "Sviatach" ("Světač"). And they were answered with utter cynicism: "we do not approve it, and this is the final decision, and you do not even have the right to appeal to the ministry."

Gentlemen, I turn to citizenship. When a Belarusian wants to obtain a "dowód osobisty" (identity card), he falls into a vicious circle. He must go to the voit, from the voit to the starosta, from the starosta to the voivode, from the voivode to the referent, finally to the ministry, and after the ministry it is sent once more for verification under police supervision, and so in the end two years pass, and the citizen still cannot get a passport. If he had a job, he lost it because he did not present that scrap of paper; if he is a peasant who needs no job, then he still falls prey to police abuse and, gentlemen, for 2–3 years cannot get his "citizenship" papers.

I turn to the police. Here, in this High Chamber, from this High Tribune, we heard once, in reply to one of our urgent motions, the assurances of the Minister of the Interior Sołtan that he had issued an order that he would resolutely and in full awareness punish all abuses and would not tolerate the tortures enumerated in our urgent motion. Yet what do we see? Here are facts that recurred even after the minister's assurance, and I permit myself to cite them here.

In March 1923 Trakhim Rusetski, a peasant from the village of Zalesse, Zhyrovichy gmina, Slonim county, was arrested and brought to the state police station in Zhyrovichy, where the police commandant (Kenderski) and two policemen began to torture him terribly. The abuse of the innocent man and his torment began at 12 o'clock at night. The commandant himself fell upon the arrested man's head and smothered his cries with blankets, while the other policemen beat the wretched man on the heels with sticks until he lost consciousness.

On 30 April of this year the commandant of the border police station in the village of Mikalayeushchyna, Sverzhan gmina, Stoŭbcy county, meeting in the street 14-year-old Anton Bely, son of Lukash Bely, a resident of that same village, took him to the station, where he beat the boy nearly to death. It is not known how the criminal torture of the child would have ended had it not been for the local night watch, who came to the station during the child's torment. After this incident Anton Bely could not return home under his own power and afterwards had to lie in bed for a whole week.

On 28 March of this year the state police from the town of Kuźnica, Sokółka county, came to the village of Zalesin, Zalesin gmina, and drew up a report on a theft of grain that had occurred the previous night. Suspecting of the theft the minor Balesław Kedysh, Uładzisłaŭ Sebastyanovich and Yazep Lenkevich, the police ordered them to come the next day at 10 in the morning to the state police station in Kuźnica to draw up the report anew, because there were too many people in the village. When those summoned came to the station at the appointed time, there, as always, the "badanie" (interrogation) began: they were beaten, tortured, abused, but the police could in no way make guilty men of the innocent. Then they began to pour water through each one's nose, and each was forced to drink three bottles of it. And when that did not help either, they began to torment them terribly, beating them half to death. After this crime the arrested men were released.

One more. On 5 April of this year in Nesvizh, Navahrudak voivodeship, Senator Nazarewski, in the presence of Mr. Chudzinowicz, deputy prosecutor of the district court in Navahrudak, established the following lawlessness and violence by the state police. Under arrest in Nesvizh is Mr. Lashchuk, from the village of Makashy, who was arrested by the state police from the station in Haradzeya on suspicion of stealing flour. The arrested man stated that after his arrest on 27 March he was taken to Nesvizh, where the investigator Nitka began to torture him terribly, forcing him to confess guilt. He beat him on the head and face, then they tied his hands, put them under his knees, thrust a stick between his arms and legs, threw him on the ground and began to beat him on the heels with a stick until he was unconscious. All this was done in the presence of three policemen. The marks of the torture, namely that the head and legs were swollen, could be established even on 5 April of this year.

A second arrested man, Stanisłaŭ Drozd (village of Kutoushchyna, Tsyryn gmina, Nesvizh county), is in the surgical hospital in Nesvizh. Suspected of stealing flour, he was arrested on the night of 1 to 2 March, but released on bail of 10 million marks, because there were not sufficient grounds to keep him in prison. On 24 March of this year Stanisłaŭ Drozd was arrested again and taken to Nesvizh, where the investigator "Nitka" tormented him terribly through the whole night, from 9 in the evening until morning. Policemen Nos. 942 and 1802 and the investigator "Nitka" beat the arrested man on the head, face and sides, tied his hands, put them under his knees, thrust a stick between his arms and legs, threw him on the ground and beat him on the heels with sticks until he was half dead. When the tortured man revived, he was forced to take the guilt upon himself. Having no strength to endure the torments further, the arrested man said he would confess to the theft. (A voice on the right: These are fairy tales!). No, not fairy tales, but the truth! In connection with this, the investigator "Nitka" on 25 March of this year took the arrested Drozd to the village of Krasnahorki to show the place where the stolen things were hidden. Returning home, Drozd saw his sick wife in bed (the second day after childbirth); his wife received her husband badly for having taken upon himself a great disgrace, a theft. He, explaining his regret that he could not endure further the torments inflicted on him by the Polish police, was brought to a state of despair, and to prove the purity of his conscience began to eat tobacco, and, seizing an axe, chopped off three fingers of his left hand. After all these torments, sufferings and experiences Stanisłaŭ Drozd was placed in the hospital in Nesvizh.

There, gentlemen, is what kind of "fairy tale" this is! If you gentlemen say it is a fairy tale, then by that very fact you are morally answerable for these torments! If you say it is a fairy tale, then I ask you to go to Nesvizh and look at the chopped-off fingers!

I have cited to you a few facts, but I have whole heaps of them, and I do not cite them all because the time of my speech is limited. And when the victims went to higher authority, we have facts that those who tortured the people and abused them were given higher positions!

What was that man to do, when he had no satisfaction, when there is no legality? And I assert that there is no legality in the Eastern Borderlands.

If this had happened to me, then, believe me, I would have found that satisfaction: I would have taken a revolver and fired a bullet! If you want the people to seek justice for themselves, then they will seek it themselves and will find it! (Applause on the Belarusian and Ukrainian benches).

Here we often hear about banditry. Yes, banditry flourishes, exists and will exist, because

the people take revenge on the police,

until you gentlemen come and change that guiding line of conduct from 1920 toward the people here, until this people are truly treated as citizens, and not treated as citizens of the third or fourth class. The order of former Minister Kernik to increase the police will not help you, nor will sending mounted police and punitive expeditions. Now

the people fear the police more than the bandits,

because bandits take only property but do not torture, while the police torture and throw people into prison for two or three years, where people sit without trial, which can be confirmed. There is only one rational means for this: that the minister remove the police to the last man and form police cadres from local people, who will know local conditions. Then at least a minimum will be achieved. For police have been sent to us from Eastern Galicia, and 75% of them are the scum of society, and they carry on this inquisition here. Gentlemen, if the police are recruited from local people, there will be no such inquisitions, and they will perform their official duties no worse than those from Galicia who came to the Eastern Borderlands to enrich themselves.

In my speech I must note one more thing, namely that ministers of the interior change every two or three months, while in the Ministry of the Interior that rotten Austrian bureaucracy sits on; and as long as it sits there, as long as no minister of the interior is found in Poland who would come with an iron broom and sweep out all this and let in clean air, there will be no order there. Yes, order must be introduced in this ministry. Minister Sołtan already told us that he would not tolerate any abuses, yet so far we see no improvement.

The ministry has submitted a draft law on self-governments. It is a scandal that today, in a democratic state where the Constitution guarantees freedom, liberty and equality, one Pole should be worth four Belarusians! This is simply scandalous, contrary to the constitution of the Polish Republic, as is all that rotten Austrian bureaucracy, which dared to submit to the High Chamber such a draft law on self-governments!

Concluding my speech, I will note that we would like to see in the post of minister of the interior a man who would have a strong will and courage and would at last make order, and then there would be no such abuses.

Having no confidence in the Ministry of the Interior, we will vote against the budget.