The World : Poles Battle Riot Police

Polish demonstrators threw percussion grenades, stones and tear-gas canisters at riot police in Warsaw in a bitter anti-government protest on the seventh anniversary of Poland’s 1981 martial-law crackdown on the Solidarity union. Witnesses said the protesters, estimated in the hundreds, attacked the police, punching and kicking them in close-quarter fighting. Solidarity union sources said that protests by thousands of other demonstrators erupted in Krakow, Lodz, Wroclaw and Lublin. Father Henryk Jankowski--a friend of Solidarity leader Lech Walesa--averted trouble in the northern port of Gdansk by confiscating tear-gas grenades and firebombs from would-be protesters, sources said. Most young Poles serve in military or police units and thus have access to weaponry.