Suchergebnisse

The principal trends in US foreign policy in Central America during the nineteen eighties are described. The Central American crisis, which has most acutely affected such countries as San Salvador and Nicaragua, has deep social roots and the military dictatorships ruling there now for many years are largely responsibile for the appearance of its most severe form — civil war. As long as the military dictatorships ensured stability, the United States treated this region as a peripheral sphere. It was the deepening of this crisis situation at the end of the nineteen seventies and the beginning of the eighties together with the victory gained by the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua which urged the Reagan administration to unprecedented US involvement. From the outset this administration, true to its conservative doctrine, put its faith in military type actions as one of the principal instruments to bring about a change in this situation. The military aid programmes for local regimes have been substantially increased and the network of military bases in the region has been extended. The US assessment of the situation in Central America has always been based on the assumption that the chief instigators of this crisis are the left wing forces, supported and inspired by the socialist countries with the object of widening their sphere of influence. Hence also the cornerstone of US policy has been to recognise the regional conflict as a direct threat to US national security. The new strategy involved principally the neutralisation of the left wing, including the change of the regime in Nicaragua and its organisation as far as possible on a formally democratic system of government operated by the centre parties. To attain this end they not only support military actions (always seen as the major lever) but also economic aid is increased, elections are arranged (El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala), regional inter-government cooperation is promoted together with diplomatic isolation of Nicaragua and undermining of the government of that country. Also the possibility of direct military action has not been ruled out.

The author concentrates on the creative and codifying role of the state concerning certain genres of speech. Types of text generated by the state are called here 'state controlled genres'. It is a general term describing the genres which exist and function within the activity of the state – literary genres, journalism, public relations, admin-istration, law, political discourse, parliamentary debates. These genres fall outside descriptions of existing typologies. The following elements of state that influence the various genres of the text are taken into consideration: administration (parliament, state departments, offices; ex-amples: constitution, laws, expose, applications), diplomacy (international contacts: letters of credence, aide-memoires) and media (president, prime minister, ministers, members of parliament, spokesmen; examples: orations, proclamations, briefings, rectifications). State controlled genres are one of the elements of language (on the genetic level) which are essential for the identity of the contemporary homo politicus society.

The geopolitical location of Poland in Central Europe determines the role of platform between the countries of Western and Eastern Europe. This location nowadays and very probably access to Eropean Union's structures and the NATO in near future will support the development of economic relations in Eastern Europe and will enable an additional source of income for the country by transit including through the sea ports. To make this development real it's necessary to expand the transport infrastructure for all means of transport because its present weakness is a barrier for goods transportation and it negatively influences the development of the region and the country - it's irrevocable condition of effective transport policy performing to consider the transit policy. The analysis of changes in transit services realization in Polish ports makes conclude that the transport and transit policy is inefficacious or even there's no such a policy. The statistical data show that the turnover broke down in 1991. The evident transit decreasing in railway transport and inland shipping caused by modification of Polish geopolitical location, economic transformation process in Central Europe, the fall of Soviet Union and Council for Mutual Economic Aid had the unprofitable effect on reloading of goods and transit reloading in Polish ports in the years 1991-96. After 1991, the Ukrainian and Belarusan transit determined by geopolitical factors has appeared. After independence regaining by Ukraine this country faced with the problem of reconstructing transport connections with foreign countries, especially in the direction: Odessa - Gdańsk and Gdynia. The substantially important for Polish- Ukrainian co-operation will be constructing of the transport track linking ports of Black Sea via Lvov and Lublin to ports of Gdańsk Bay: "Via Intermare". This assignment will enable to increase activity of regions crossed by the track and also will strengthen economic relations between Poland and Ukraine. The economic crisis in Central Europe caused not only transit decreasing but also competition among the transit countries. In this competition Poland is rather weak competitor because of insufficient transport infrastructure. Also teh changes of geopolitical location highly influenced the amount and directions of cargoes reloaded in Polish ports. These negative processes are a result of lack of univocally defined aims and instruments of the transit policy. ; Marcin Polom

Immediately after the dicision of the Ambasador's Council of July 28, 1920,concerning the division of the Cieszyn Silesia, it became clear thet the said delimitation did not win the acceptance of any serious political forces in Poland. The Polish state's difficult international situation, however, made the Polish authorities abandon the idea of resolving the Zaolzie question by force. Fruitless negotiations were, at the same time, conducted to obtain the cossion of at least a part of the disputed territory in Poland's favour and various diplomatic interventions were undertaken to improve the situation of the Polish population inhabiting the Zaolzie Silesia. In spite of the low efficiency of such initiatives, in 1925 the political relation between Poland and Czechoslovakia were normalised and a liquidation agreement was signed, which led to a normalisation of mutual relations in the divided area. The actions of the Polish Republic in relation to the Zaolzie were influenced by various factors that were difficult to harmonise. One of them was the necessity to subjugate the Zaolzie question to the atate's general interests, which included an acceptance of the Versailles status quo, and attempts to find a platform of co-operation with Czechoslovakia in view of the growing German threat. Another factor was the desire to maintain the Polish national character of the Zaolzie motivated by the reluctance to give up that territory in an unequivocal way. The expectation of a cooperation with Czechoslovakia in the international context led to the policy of letting bygones be bygones. The democratic nature of the Chechoslovak state afforded a possibility of making the defence of the Polish national rights the responsibility of the Polish deputies in the parliament in Prague. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs tried then to persuade the leaders of the Polish community in the Zaolzie to assume a more activistic attitude. At the same time, the Polish Consul in Moravska Ostrava supported financially the institutions of the Polish national life nad tried to resist the assimilating policy of the Czech authorities. This tactics brought, up to a point, some results, but it did not prevent all attempts at an assimilation on the part of influential Czech organisations and bussiness circles, neither did it safeguard the conditions of the national life in the Zaolzie so as to obviate the need for the steady flow of the Polish financial aid without which the Polish educational and cultural institutions would not survive. In the late 1920s and early 1930s a rapprochement between Warsaw and Prague seemed to substantiate the hopes for a betterment of the situation of the Poles in the Zaolzie. In the wake of such hopes there appeared Polish-Czechoslovak societies and Czechoslovak-Polish clubs. These clubs reised high expectations in the consular centre in Moravska Ostrava, which hoped that they would help to break down the barriers between the Polish and Czech population and to obtain the support of influential Czech circles for the postulates of the Polish minority. The most committed members of the clubs (just like all, with no exceptions, Polish cosuits in Moravska Ostrava) were treated, however, with great suspicion and aversion by the Czech nationalist circles, as well as by the personalities representing the views of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The most far-reaching initiative, that is the idea of calling a reconciliation conference concerning the matters of the Cieszyn Silesia in 1932, ended in a fiasco. Such factors as the way the 1930 sensus was carried out, the obvious deterioration of the living standards at the time of the Great Depression, and the attitude of the persons responsible for the Czech foreign policy who insisted on all Polish citizens leaving Czechoslovakia before "equitable" negotiations with Poland could begin, signalled the end of the period in which a positive and active conduct of the Polish population could seem an efficient antidote to the growing pressure for assimilation. The political events of 1933 changed the perception of the chances for a cooperation between Poland and Czechoslovakia, both of them being situated between Germany and the Soviet Union, which, in early 1934, made the representatives of the Polish Republic change their policy in the Zaolzie. From then, on the support of the Polish authorities and society for the Polish minority was emphasised, also a pressure was being exerted on the Czechoslovak government by means of an organised press campaign in Poland. The Czechoslovak government, however, did not yield under pressure, and assumed an intransigent attitude, taking this opportunity to get rid of a certain number of the Poles in the Zaolzie. The assimilation of the local Poles both of a natural kind and enforced by political and economic pressure seemed to the Czech authorities to be the best way to pacify this important borderline region. The tactics to which the Polish side resorted did not then lead to an improvement of the situation of the ethnic Poles in Czechoslovakia, it had, however, a different result, namely it aroused the national feelings and kindled the hopes for the Polish state's stronger support for the minority aspirations. In Poland, on the other hand, the internal situation in Poland's southern neighbour state, beginning with the elections of 1935, started to be looked at from the perspective of the apparently imminent crisis. In view of this, while the idea of an intensive propaganda camping was abandoned, the Czech policy in relation to the ethnic minorities was carefully watched, and the internal integration of the Polish community in the Zaolzie was strongly supported.