Warsaw is remembering the victims of the air tragedy that killed 96 passengers, including the president, first lady and most of the country's political elite. Memorial ceremonies marking the third anniversary of the crash are held in Poland.
Thousands of people gather near the Presidential Palace in
central Warsaw to commemorate the victims of the plane crash, among
which were President Lech Kaczynski and other members of a
high-profile Polish delegation.
The late Polish president's twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski
attends the memorial event at the military cemetery in Povonzkah,
where a monument to the victims of the tragedy has been
erected.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk lays flowers at the memorial in the military cemetery.
“I believe the day when this sad, tragic anniversary of the
Smolensk plane crash won’t separate Polish people will come and
we’ll be able to pray and think without negative emotions,”
Tusk says. A daughter of former president Marta
Kaczynski prays near the grave of her father in the city of
Krakov.
At 8:41am local time, the moment when the delegation’s plane
crashed, the ceremony begins.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski also joined the ceremony to lay flowers on the
memorial installed outside the Palace.
After prayers, a documentary film about the catastrophe is shown on
a widescreen.
Last year a Polish delegation of the crash victims' relatives
and officials took part in the commemoration service at the site of
the tragedy, near Smolensk. A minute of silence was held at 8:41 am
local time, marking the moment of the crash.
On April 10, 2010, a high-profile Polish delegation was flying to western Russia to pay tribute to the victims of the 1940 Katyn forest massacre in which thousands of Polish officers were murdered and executed by Stalin's secret police around 14 kilometers west of the city of Smolensk.
The plane never reached its destination. The tragedy soured already strained relations between Russia and Poland.
Separate investigations were carried out by the two countries. Bad weather and dubious decisions by the crew were blamed by both expert commissions. It turned out that the personnel were warned of heavy fog and low visibility and asked to reroute to a different airport, but decided to land regardless of the poor weather conditions.
Warsaw’s official position has coincided with that of Moscow. Thorough investigation has confirmed that the crew committed a number of appreciable errors performing the landing in Smolensk.
On top of this, it’s believed psychological pressure was exerted on the pilots by some of the high-ranking officials on board also contributed to the crew's fatal decision to land.
Transcripts from the plane’s "black box" revealed that the
pilots were in a hurry to land, on the insistence of an unknown
person on-board who said he would “go crazy” if they chose not
to.
The recording also showed that a certain influential official had
entered the cockpit numerous times throughout the flight, while
Poland’s Chief of the Air Force was present in the cockpit at the
time of the crash.
The investigation was set back due to the suicide of a key witness just before testimony.
In October, flight engineer Remigiusz Muś, 42, set to deliver
critical testimony in the Polish parliamentary investigation into
the plane crash, as one of two key witnesses in the case, was found
dead in his house in Warsaw after committing suicide.
His testimony contradicted the official version, which said that
the traffic controller only allowed the airplane to descend to 100
meters. The engineer claimed he overheard a Russian air traffic
control officer allowing descent to a ‘landing decision’ height of
50 meters.
His suicide became the second incident connected to the
investigation of the plane crash as earlier a Polish prosecutor
involved in the investigation shot himself during a media briefing in January 2012.
Last year, in March, Poland’s Supreme Chamber of Control
released its final report on the accident, according to which
Kaczynski's plane was not even authorized to carry out the
flight.
Smolensk airport was not listed as an active facility for the
presidential flight. The head of the chamber Yatsek Yazersky
pointed out that landing there should have been done only after a
test flight, which never took place.
While hundreds of thousands of Poles were deeply shaken by the
tragedy, some tried to use it to advance their political
ambitions.
Despite the hard evidence and eyewitness accounts supporting the
investigation, some political forces in Poland have pointed the
finger at Russia.
Polish right-wing parties made an attempt to use the Smolensk crash
to score points in their presidential and parliamentary campaigns.
Their failure to win votes with anti-Russian rhetoric later proved
their line had nonetheless failed to reflect the general mood of
the Polish people.
Meanwhile, Nationalist Law and Justice party leader Jaroslaw
Kaczynski has repeatedly claimed that the tragic death of his
brother might not have been an accident, accusing Moscow of killing
his brother.
“If there were explosions [on-board the plane], if this
catastrophe looks increasingly like an assassination, then this
means there is a new quality to international politics,”
Kaczynski was quoted as saying.
On the eve of the second anniversary of the presidential plane
crash, Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s supporters rallied in front of the
Russian Embassy in Warsaw and set fire to an effigy of Vladimir
Putin, also claiming the tragedy was an assassination.
On Wednesday, in Smolensk memorial services are to start at 9:00am
to commemorate the death of the Polish President and a swath of the
Polish military and political elite.
Several Polish officials, including the head of the Prime
Minister’s office, Interior Minister and Defense Minister, are
expected to visit the memorial ceremony at the site of the crash in
Smolensk.
The two countries have long been discussing the details of
construction of the monument in Smolensk. Russia had provided
Poland the topographic and geological information about the crash
site and its surroundings needed for a monument to be designed.
This week Poland has announced that the Smolensk memorial area will
occupy 1,219 square meters. According to the Polish Ministry of
Culture and National Heritage plan, the monument will be in a form
of a 115-meter-long and 2.2-meter-high red granite wall with the
names of the victims on it.
“We hope our cooperation will intensify, and allow us to do
everything possible to build a memorial to mark the site of this
terrible tragedy, that could become a symbol of solidarity between
our two nations,” Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said
last year. “This is our common goal.”