Ex-President Regrets 1968 Prague Crackdown
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Former Polish President Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski apologized for the first time for ordering Polish troops to take part in the 1968 Moscow-led crackdown on Czechoslovakia’s Prague Spring reform movement.
Speaking to Czech state TV on the 37th anniversary, Jaruzelski said the invasion had been “very painful for me.”
“But, in 1968, I was the defense minister implementing a political decision, convinced that there were grounds for that.... I am now offering my sincere apologies.”
Soviet troops and soldiers from four communist bloc nations stormed into Czechoslovakia on Aug. 21, 1968, to halt a liberalization movement. Eighty people died.
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