On March 13, we published an article in Oneta. We reveal: a sexual attack by the commander on a soldier. “I am pushy”, “I want”, “We will finish”. In it we described the past of knowing the commander of the 14th West Pomeranian Territorial Defence Brigade with Private A., which was to end with a sexual attack on her. The communicative was covered with rich evidence in the form of quotes from interview screens and recordings.
Four days after our publication at his press conference in consequence to a question from writer Polsat, the defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz addressed the case. It is good that the case was commented by a advanced government official, due to the fact that specified a message gives weight to a problem that has a destructive effect on the full Polish army. However, the Minister's speech needs to be seriously clarified.
How was it really?
Let's start with the hard facts. In the first part of his statement, Minister Kosiniak-Kamish says: ‘First, an immediate explanation of the case, a notified gendarmerie, a notified D.A., is not here, and there cannot be any delay. This was immediately after the information was sent to the Commission, which is why operations are being carried out in this case, the dismissal of duties and the failure of this function in fact."
It is clear from this message that the military authorities immediately reacted to the reporting of the female to the Military Gendarmerie, resulting in the commander being removed from his duties. That's not how it looked.
On 6 December 2024, Private A. reported to the Military Gendarmerie Unit in Trzebiatów on a sexual attack by the commander of the 14th Brigade.
Shortly afterwards, the commander actually disappeared from the unit, but not due to the fact that he was relieved of his duties, but due to the fact that he went on leave and was then on sick leave. Even then, we received signals that the military was playing to wait out and that the commander would shortly return to his duties. We were waiting for a minute to come back to see if these signals would work. It worked.
On 3 March, the commander returned to his duties in the brigade.
On March 6, evening, just before the weekend, we sent the Territorial defence Army Command 29 detailed questions about him.
On March 10, an officer was removed from work and transferred to the reserve. In this case, as is frequently the case, the military only acted in consequence to media questions.
Synchronising folder
In the second part of his statement, the Minister of National Defence said: “I would very much like to ask you not to generalize up to 200 000 soldiers of the Polish Army, due to the fact that respect for uniform is something that unites us. There are black sheep among all social group, among politicians, among doctors, among those who have a profession of public trust, among priests, there is no environment free of it, and they must be caught and punished, and not burdened with all who are honest.”
We are very far from generalizing individual cases to 200 1000 soldiers of the Polish Army. On the another hand, we believe that speaking of any individual “black sheep”, the minister is downplaying serious pathology in the army. The point is that the military is faced with a systemic problem of utilizing in various ways the authority of the elder officers, whose vast majority of these 200,000 soldiers are victims.
We have been dealing with the problem of the usage of seniority in the military since at least 2017, erstwhile we described Mobbing and sexual harassment in the Military Gendarmerie. What seemed to us at the time a simple communicative aimed at a clear judicial verdict turned into a massive attack of the full military formation into 2 women, victims of mobbing and harassment. The 2 women were then faced with an full investigative party, which is usually utilized for the most serious criminals – including operational and investigation operations and Pegasus software.
In the military, there is simply a usage of seniority, and erstwhile specified cases as the range. A. comes out, the first instinct is to sweep them under the carpet. This problem concerns not only troops, but all uniformed services. In late 2022 the #SayStop Foundation published a report, which revealed that in the last decade a full of 525 complaints concerning mobbing, discrimination and harassment had been received by all uniformed services. Only 5 of them were considered justified.
Collision with feudal relationships
What is the result? Many people with advanced competence – IT engineers, engineers, communications, etc. – are attracted to the army, with the word of representatives of all these professions, which for the military are invaluable. These people frequently come to the army from civilian enterprises, where there are advanced standards of work ethics. Those who are fortunate to find reasonable commanders bring invaluable value to the safety of our country. Many others who collide in their units with feudal relationships just leave. This leaves our army with a immense shortage of specialists.
The road from the Zachodniopomorskie Voivodeship, in which we described the sexual attack scandal, to the Ministry of Defence in Warsaw is long. We fishy that the minister is not getting all the information from that and from another units. Hence, as we think, the deficiency of precision in the minister's statements and the downgrading of the systemic problem.
And yet in the 14th West Pomeranian Defence Brigade there is much more problem than the 1 we described. The question is whether the minister will sooner learn about these another people from his subordinates or from subsequent media publications.
