Poland president's burial stirs row

[ensho]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/04/2010414154631654449.html


Plans to bury Poland's late president in a castle where kings have been interred has triggered divisions across a nation still mourning the death of its leader.

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But the choice of site has sparked anger among some groups, triggering protests on the streets and campaigns on social networking websites.

In a rare breach of the unity seen in Poland since Saturday's crash, several hundred people gathered in Krakow late on Tuesday crying "Not in the Wawel" and waving banners reading "Is he fit to be a king?"

'Sorrow will turn to hate'

Poles also organised protest campaigns on social media site Facebook, with a group called "No to the Kaczynskis burial in Wawel" attracting over 30,000 fans.

"If President Kaczynski had died of natural causes he would never have been buried in Wawel," Jerzy Meysztowicz, a Civic Platform (PO) politician in Krakow, told Reuters.

"All the president's faults will soon be in the spotlight and in many cases sorrow will turn to hate."

The leading Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza also opposed the move, calling the decision "hasty and emotional" in a front page editorial.

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Wawel is a large complex of buildings on the Vistula river that includes a castle, cathedral and fortifications, and traces its roots as a centre of political power back to the end of the first millennium.

As well as Polish kings, the Wawel crypt also contains the bodies of legendary military commander Tadeusz Kosciuszko, who fought in the US war of independence, Poland's wartime leader Wladyslaw Sikorski, and national poet Adam Mickiewicz.
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