Lech Walesa snubs Obama, fellow Nobel winner
Lech Walesa, Poland’s Solidarity-era legend, ex-president and 1983 Nobel Peace Prize winner said Friday he would not accept an invitation to meet with fellow Nobel winner US President Barack Obama.
“It’s difficult to tell journalists what you’d like to say to the president of a superpower. This time I won’t tell him, I won’t meet him, it doesn’t suit me,” Walesa told Poland’s public broadcaster TVP.
Obama is due to arrive in Poland Friday after the G8 summit in France.
Walesa was originally scheduled to meet Obama Saturday along with other key figures in Poland’s post-1989 transition from communism to democracy.
According to sources close to Walesa, he was expecting a personal invitation from Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 shortly after taking office.
The US president is Friday scheduled to attend a working dinner with more than a dozen presidents of ex-communist states focusing on what lessons their democratic transformation could hold for the Arab Spring.
On Saturday, Obama is due to hold bilateral talks with his Polish counterpart Bronislaw Komorowski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk on the last leg of his European tour which has also covered Ireland and Britain.
- Lech Walesa: ‘if Europe Opens Its Gates To Muslims, There Will Be Beheadings Here’
‘If Europe opens its gates to Muslims, there will be beheadings here’ GDANSK – It was difficult to know whether Lech Walesa was cynical, joking or dead serious. Maybe all of the above. His direct approach to, and simplistic views of, a complicated...
- Obama Awards Medal Of Freedom To Democratic Socialists Chair, But Refuses To Have Lech Walesa Because He's "too Political"
Via National Review: Lech Walesa was once a trade-union activist. He was often arrested for speaking his mind against Communist oppression behind the Iron Curtain in Poland and for defying the Soviet Union. He was an electrician who, with no higher education,...
- Lech Walesa Not Attending Occupy Wall Street After All
He found out they were a Communist Movement. You know, exactly like the people he fought against in Eastern Europe. From Big Government: The Polish champion of freedom and liberty, founder of Solidarity, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, and first...
- Steven Crowder
Damien sent this I heard it today, Barack got a prize Seams theyre dishin peace, prizes left and right If you wanna prize, you can do it to Theres just a few things, that you gotta do Im mowing the lawn You get a peace prize Doing the laundry Thats...
- Never
I never thought I could agree with Hamas Hamas says Obama does not deserve Nobel Peace Prize Fawzi Barhoum, Gaza Hamas spokesman told Xinhua that "Obama does not deserve this prize," after the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced Obama was awarded the...