VZCZCXRO0848
OO RUEHIK
DE RUEHWR #0007/01 0051207
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 051207Z JAN 10
FM AMEMBASSY WARSAW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 9294
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC IMMEDIATE
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 WARSAW 000007 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/ACE, EUR/CE, DRL 
PLEASE PASS TO USAID 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PHUM KDEM PL
SUBJECT: POLAND: VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN'S ROUNDTABLE WITH 
CIVIL SOCIETY ACTIVISTS 
 
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¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: In an October 21 meeting with the Vice 
President, a diverse group of Polish civil society 
representatives, including organizations active in promoting 
democratic transformation and empowerment of women and 
minorities, emphasized Poland's efforts to share its 
successful transformation experience with countries in 
Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Participants highlighted 
Poland's unique strengths and the challenges they still face. 
 Noting that Poland had benefited from SEED and USAID 
assistance in the 1990s, participants said Poland would 
welcome U.S. technical assistance and expertise to strengthen 
Poland's capacity to deliver development assistance to third 
countries.  They expressed confidence that a U.S.-Polish 
partnership -- bringing together Poland's know-how and 
experience with U.S. resources and development expertise -- 
would bolster efforts to strengthen democratic institutions 
and processes eastward.  The Vice President congratulated 
Poland for all it had achieved and encouraged Poles to 
continue to shift from thinking of what the U.S. can do for 
Poland to what the U.S. can do with Poland.  He told civil 
society leaders that Poland is a leading example of how to 
transition successfully to democracy, and Poles should be 
confident in looking to themselves for guidance.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (U) PARTICIPANTS 
 
United States 
------------- 
Vice President Biden 
Ambassador Feinstein, U.S. Ambassador to Poland 
 
Polish Civil Society 
-------------------- 
Jolanta Kwasniewska, Former First Lady of Poland and Founder, 
Communication without Barriers Foundation 
Bronislaw Misztal, Executive Director, Community of 
Democracies Permanent Secretariat 
Eleonora Bergman, Director, Jewish Historical Institute 
Jacek Michalowski, Program Director, Polish-American Freedom 
Foundation 
Dorota Mitrus, President, European Institute for Democracy 
Mirella Panek-Owsianska, President, Responsible Business Forum 
Paula Sawicka, President, Open Republic Association 
Jacek Strzemieczny, President, Center for Citizenship 
Education 
 
¶3. (SBU) The Vice President began the meeting by saying he 
had asked to meet with Civil Society Organizations because 
they have their fingers on the pulse of society.  He noted 
the importance he had personally placed on Poland as a U.S. 
Senator, particularly his leadership in the Senate on Polish 
membership in NATO.  Biden said he had found it hard to 
believe that the U.S. commitment to Poland had been 
questioned in connection with U.S. efforts to reset relations 
with Russia.  He noted that the world was at an inflection 
point and had changed utterly over the past ten years.  The 
world will change with or without our input.  We have a 
chance to bend the curve of history, Biden said, noting that 
Civil Society Organizations should be at the forefront of 
such efforts.  A Europe "whole and free" is one of the two 
foundations of building a global security apparatus for the 
21st century, and Central European countries are poised to 
play a leading role.  He asked the participants to provide a 
sense of how Central Europe was developing and responding to 
changes over the past decade.  The long-term success of 
Central Europe's democratic transition will depend on the 
spread of democracy eastward and ensuring that it takes root 
at home. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Bronislaw Misztal of the Community of Democracies 
Permanent Secretariat said the Vice President had "come to 
the right place" to discuss promoting democratic change in 
Eastern Europe.  He pointed out that Polish Civil Society 
Organizations are actively engaged in sharing Poland's 
experience and know-how with Eastern neighbors.  Misztal 
agreed that the world had changed in the past decade.  With a 
new architecture for international relations, the role of the 
United States would also change.  He expressed appreciation 
for the Obama Administration's shift in focus on democracy 
promotion, and noted that, even though the "delivery service" 
had changed, Poland still had the requisite "parcel contents" 
to share with activists aspiring to democratic change in 
other countries.  Misztal said next year's tenth anniversary 
of the Community of Democracies presented an opportunity to 
rethink -- and re-energize -- democracy promotion under the 
current challenging conditions.  He reiterated that Poland 
 
WARSAW 00000007  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
has the experience and is looking for U.S. partnership and 
cooperation toward shared goals. 
 
¶5. (SBU) The Polish-American Freedom Foundation's Jacek 
Michalowski noted that Poland had created a successful 
democracy and now feels a "moral obligation" to share its 
experience eastward.  He stressed the need for greater 
coordination between the approximately 1,500 smaller Polish 
Civil Society Organizations working in Eastern Europe. 
Michalowski called for greater emphasis on three-country 
youth exchange programs, e.g., Poland-U.S.-Russia or 
Poland-U.S.-Belarus.  Although NGOs run a number of small 
programs, exchanges on a much larger scale are urgently 
needed.  Picking up on this theme, the Vice President agreed 
that more people -- especially young people -- need to be 
exposed to democratic systems to increase the chances that 
they become adherents. 
 
¶6. (SBU) The Vice President asked how Polish Civil Society 
Organizations interface with counterparts in countries like 
Ukraine.  While Polish organizations face stiff competition 
for grants and therefore work hard to identify effective 
partners, this is not always easy, Michalowski said.  Biden 
noted that during his recent visit to Ukraine, which faces 
the dual challenges of Russian pressure and internal 
disarray, government officials had cited a lack of 
interlocutors from other countries as a complicating factor. 
The European Institute for Democracy's Mitrus questioned such 
claims, citing as one example her organization's efforts to 
arrange internships and exchange programs for Ukrainian 
government officials.  As another example, she cited her 
NGO's project (funded by the UK) to enhance cross-border 
security cooperation between Polish and Ukrainian border 
guards, police, and customs. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Mitrus said Polish Civil Society Organizations have 
an advantage promoting democracy in former Soviet states 
because "Poles have been there, too."  As such, countries to 
the East more readily identify with Poland.  However, Polish 
NGOs have difficulty finding quality partners in neighboring 
countries -- they are there, but difficult to identify.  She 
also stressed the need to move "beyond conferences" to 
practical action.  She suggested experts from USAID could 
help the GOP and Polish NGOs address weaknesses in Poland's 
development assistance legislation and delivery mechanisms. 
U.S. expertise on how to build development assistance 
projects would be especially helpful, Mitrus said.  The Vice 
President encouraged Mitrus and others to think beyond what 
the U.S. could provide to Poland and explore what the U.S. 
and Poland could do together as partners.  (COMMENT: 
Participants afterwards told Embassy officers this was the 
first time a high-level Western official had effectively 
identified Poland as part of "the West," rather than Central 
or Eastern Europe -- a welcome development from their 
perspective.  END COMMENT.) 
 
¶8. (SBU) Eleonora Bergman of the Jewish Historical Institute 
(JHI) said that her Institute's work, while specialized, 
plays an important role in strengthening Polish democracy. 
By teaching about the history of Polish Jews and preserving 
Jewish memory -- not just for Poles but also for exchange 
students and teachers from the United States and Eastern 
European countries -- JHI is engaged in showing that 
democracy promotion is about opening up participation to 
voices that have traditionally been under-represented and 
even excluded.  Noting his visit earlier in the day to the 
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising memorial, Biden said he had been 
especially impressed by the efforts of non-Jewish Civil 
Society Organizations to promote Poland's Jewish heritage. 
"The fact that Jewish and non-Jewish organizations are 
sitting together in this meeting is a sign of how far Poland 
has come," Biden said. 
 
¶9. (SBU) Picking up on the notion that democracy is about 
more than free elections, Jacek Strzemieczny of the Center 
for Citizenship Education (CCE) stressed the importance of 
promoting active citizenship.  "We have to change attitudes," 
he said.  CCE had moved beyond its early 1990s focus on 
civics classes to look at the broader educational experience. 
 The key objective is empowering young people to take on the 
big challenges their societies face and to help students 
understand that people from different historical backgrounds 
can work together to solve problems.  Biden agreed that 
education plays an essential role, suggesting that the key 
difference between the former Soviet Union and Western 
democracies during the Cold War was the emphasis the latter 
 
WARSAW 00000007  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
had placed on teaching critical thinking.  He said the Obama 
Administration's "back to basics" approach worldwide is to 
focus on the transformative power of basic education.  Biden 
agreed that elections are a necessary, but not sufficient, 
precondition for democracy.  A free press, educated populace, 
democratic structures, and capacity to deliver basic services 
are also essential. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Open Republic's Paula Sawicka commented that 
perhaps Strzemieczny and others had an easier task educating 
children in the value of tolerance, whereas her organization 
was faced with the more difficult prospect of working to 
develop these values in adults. She pledged her readiness to 
bring her wealth of experiences to the process.  Biden noted 
that the most critical condition that Poland, Hungary, and 
the Czech Republic had to meet for NATO accession in the 
1990s was to overcome concerns, on the basis of the 
experience of the past 70 years, about the treatment of 
minority groups.  NATO is more than a security arrangement, 
Biden said.  It is an organization based on shared values. 
While all Allies, the U.S. included, have work to do with 
respect to treatment and participation of minority groups, 
every post-Cold War aspirant country, including Poland, had 
to demonstrate its commitment to resolving difficult 
historical issues, whether border disputes or human rights 
concerns. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Mirella Panek-Owsianska, a former spokesperson for 
Amnesty International Poland, told the Vice President she had 
solicited questions on Facebook for this meeting.  She spoke 
of a great hope among her Polish peers for the U.S. to act as 
a true leader in the promotion of human rights. 
Panek-Owsianska said that Poles stand ready to be partners in 
this. The Vice President noted that these changes can be hard 
to achieve.  In closing, former First Lady Jolanta 
Kwasniewska reflected that Poland and the whole world had 
been inspired by President Obama's message of 'hope.'  She 
reiterated that the experience of the past 20 years had 
equipped Poland to share what it had learned with the rest of 
the world.  The most important way to move forward was to 
"just do it." 
 
¶12. (U) Vice President Biden's Office has cleared this cable. 
HEIDT