The Poland again paid a heavy price to this tragic memory

Cursed or Katyn. Yesterday, the time was to contemplation and emotion in Poland and in most world capitals after the air disaster of Smolensk, which cost the lives of the Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, his wife, the Governor of the Central Bank, Slawomir Skrzypek and several senior members of the staff of the army. Shortly after noon, cars and pedestrians are frozen for two minutes of silence across all the Poland, in tribute to the victims of the accident. Passengers comprising a large part of the Polish political elite were to attend the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the massacre of 22,000 Polish officers at Katyn, near Smolensk, ordered by Stalin in 1940. The Poland again paid a heavy price to this tragic memory.

The disappearance of the President, Lech Kaczynski, whose body was repatriated yesterday in Warsaw, where a ceremony was held at the airport in the presence of the family and the highest Polish authorities, has attracted number of statements through the world. The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, expressed Saturday its "very great emotion" and its "deep sorrow". "In this tragic event that plunged the entire Poland", Nicolas Sarkozy "wishes to recall the exceptional feelings of friendship between the France and the Poland and the French people and the Polish people". The American President, Barack Obama, said Saturday that the death of the Polish President was "appalling for the Poland, the United States and the world".

The tragedy may disrupt the gives

Yesterday, investigators Russian and Polish after the Tupolev 154, a Russian aircraft black boxes, were trying to find the reasons for the disaster which balance has been revised downward of 97 and 96 dead. According to the first testimony and evidence, the pilot of the aircraft would be involved. The Deputy Commander of the staff of the army of the Russian air, Alexandre Aliochine, said Saturday that the Poles had ignored the controllers Russian, these instructions asking them to go to another airport because of bad weather. The aircraft hung the treetops, crashing to a few hundred metres of the runway, in a fourth attempt of landing in thick fog, according to the Russian authorities.

Pending the final results of the investigations, the Polish Government convened emergency Saturday to determine how to proceed. No institutional vacuum is to be feared. The Polish Constitution provides for an interim presidency, assured by the head of the Parliament, Bronislaw Komorowski. This last has fourteen days to set a date for the election early "by choosing a holiday within sixty days from the date of the announcement of the election." The next regular presidential elections scheduled in October. It would have probably opposed the conservative Lech Kaczynski to Bronislaw Komorowski, official candidate of the Liberal civic platform (PO) of the current Prime Minister, Donald Tusk. The tragedy of Saturday upset gives applicants two main parties that opposed having perished in the accident: Lech Kaczynski, of the conservative party law and Justice (PiS) and Jerzy Szmajdzinski, of the Alliance of the democratic left (SLD). For political scientists, the party PiS chaired by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, twin brother of the deceased President, will have difficulty to recover.