Young Poles battle government over swampland - Reuters

[Eugene]

Young Poles battle government over swampland

By Monika Filipiuk
Reuters
Sunday, March 18, 2007; 7:45 PM

ROSPUDA VALLEY, Poland (Reuters) - Scores of young activists camped
in a remote peat bog in the northeast of Poland last month and
threatened to chain themselves to trees to stop bulldozers clearing
land for a highway.

That kind of civil disobedience was forbidden under communism. It was
also unnecessary: by the 1980s infrastructure projects had ground to
a halt.

Now the government is launching a 100-billion zloty ($33.8 billion)
expansion of its road network -- and the first generation to grow up
after Poland's 1989 revolution brought democracy wants its say on
where those roads go.

"I came here to tell the government it's wrong to destroy such a
beautiful place," said Mateusz Wojcik, a 20-year-old engineering
student who traveled 800 miles from Wroclaw in southwest Poland
to the Rospuda Valley.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/18/AR2007031801089.html