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Polish election row over massacre Poland U-turn on massacre event
(about 18 hours later)
An acclaimed film director has accused the Polish government of exploiting a wartime massacre for electoral gain. Poland's president has postponed a ceremony marking a wartime massacre after being accused of manipulating the event for electoral gain.
Ceremonies marking the 1940 Katyn massacre were brought forward several months to Friday, three weeks before parliamentary elections. The commemoration of the Katyn massacre will now take place in November, after rather than before, this month's polls.
Andrzej Wajda, who has made a film about the massacre, has called for the services to be pushed back to November. The move reverses an earlier attempt to bring the ceremony forward to Friday, which had led to claims the government was trying to politicise the massacre.
The government said the ceremonies were brought forward to coincide with the release of Mr Wajda's film. Soviet forces executed thousands of Polish officers at Katyn in 1940.
Up to 20,000 Polish officers - including Mr Wajda's father - were killed by Soviet troops in Katyn in 1940. The massacre, which followed Moscow's deal with Nazi Germany to invade and divide Poland, remains a sensitive episode in Polish history.
'Horse-trading' Relatives of some of the prisoners killed in the Katyn forest - including the acclaimed film maker, Andrzej Wajda - had joined opposition politicians in criticising the president's original plan to bring the commemoration forward.
President Lech Kaczynski has rejected any suggestion that the government is trying to make electoral capital out of the massacre. They said the president's move had been designed to favour his twin brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, whose Law and Justice Party is fighting the election on a nationalist platform.
His brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is seeking re-election as prime minister in the October poll. The party also has a reputation for anti-Soviet sentiment.
Mr Wajda's father died in the massacre 'Electoral battle'
Poland's opposition believes the governing Law and Justice Party is intent on stirring nationalist sentiment for political advantage. President Lech Kaczynski's office announced on Thursday that it had decided to reschedule the ceremony for November, and rejected claims it had tried to make political capital out of the event.
The party has adopted a nationalist and anti-communist stance at regular intervals since coming to power in 2005. I don't want the death of my father, and the deaths of the thousands of Polish officers exterminated in the Soviet Union, to be exploited Andrzej WajdaPolish film maker class="" href="either url here">Film reopens Katyn wound
Gabriela Puzdrakiewicz-Gizewska, whose father died in the massacre, wrote in a letter to the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper that she did not want "the tragic death of my father... to be made the subject of political horse-trading during an election battle". "Unfortunately, the president's motives were falsely interpreted and the ceremony was dragged into the election campaign," presidential aide Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka told the Reuters news agency.
The head of the Katyn Families Federation said he would boycott the event, at which the president is expected to give posthumous promotions to many of the dead. "President Kaczynski could not allow such treatment of victims, their families and the country's highest authority," she said.
"Most of us believe the ceremony cannot take place at this time," Andrzej Skapski said. Earlier, the president's office said it had brought the ceremony forward to coincide with the release of Andrzej Wajda's film about the Katyn massacre.
Mr Wajda has called for the ceremony to be held on 11 November, Poland's independence day. But Mr Wajda, whose father was among those killed, attacked the decision to hold the commemoration before the election.
"This promotion will be taking place during an electoral battle," he said, referring to plans to hold a ceremony where some of the massacre victims would receive posthumous promotions.
"I don't want the death of my father, and the deaths of the thousands of Polish officers exterminated in the Soviet Union, to be exploited," Mr Wajda said.
The ceremony will now take place on 11 November, Poland's independence day, which comes three weeks after the election on 21 October.