A CONFERENCE OF RIDICULED SCIENTISTS
ARTUR STELMASIAK
If facts do not match the theory, it is worse for the facts – this paraphrase of Helg’s words shows best the state of a debate of Smoleńsk. Each scientific fact questioning the official version of the catastrophe is ridiculed
Over a hundred scientists participated in the Second Smoleńsk Conference which was held in Warsaw. They represented academic centres from Australia, through Poland and Denmark, to the USA and Canada. Despite the repeated opinions, the group of scientists significantly exceeded the parliamentarian team, which is led by the parliamentarian Antoni Macierewicz. And although the works were devoted to narrow specializations, practically everybody agreed that from the scientific point of view the report of the so-called Miller’s Commission has hardly anything in common with the reality. – I admire all these scientists for their courage and inquisitiveness. Many of them have these features which did not appear in the official representatives of our country – says the lawyer Małgorzata Wassermann, daughter of the late Zbigniew Wassermann.
A birch broken before the air crash?
The Second Smoleńsk Conference was divided into four specialist theme blocks. The first of them was devoted to the technical analysis of reasons and consequences of the catastrophe, the second concerned forensic medicine, the third one was devoted to the sociological analysis, the last one – to the legal analysis.
For obvious reasons the most interest was raised by the technical panel, during which the latest investigations of scientists were presented.
- These four satellite photos come from various days. Three of them present a broken birch and one of them shows a tree which is not damaged. The same picture of the broken birch is seen on 11 and 12 and on 5 April, that is, nearly a week before the tragedy -explained prof. Chris Cieszewski, presenting other satellite photos from the place of the catastrophe. He argued that the Tu-154M cannot have lost a fragment of the left wing after the crash into the birch, because the tree had been broken three days before the catastrophe. The American scientist, in his analysis, used complex methods improving the quality of satellite photos. His evidence is also strengthened by the fact that the investigation was signed by five other scientists from the University of Georgia. Many of them have specialist certificates of reading out satellite photos for the USA government.
The presentation of prof. Cieszewski is breakthrough. Although he says that further investigations will require satellite photos of a better quality than those ones commercially available. However, such photos can be gained only by official institutions, not private people.
Investigators from the Main Military Prosecution are skeptical towards the results of the investigations of the American scientist. They explain that they have opinions given on the basis of the satellite photos and witnesses’ testimonies, who said that on 10 April the birch had been intact. Unfortunately, satellite photos of the catastrophe area which are owned by the Main Military Prosecution were obfuscated. – I think that the presentation of prof. Cieszewski has an evidence value. I hope that the prosecution will invite him for a meeting with its experts. He probably has technics of analyzing photographs, which are better than those known in Poland – says the lawyer Piotr Pszczółkowski, a proxy of Jarosław Kaczyński.
Mockery at the investigation
The previous knowledge of official experts about the key evidence is very poor. It must be reminded that Polish institutions have not got any investigation results concerning the birch and the wing end yet. The only argument given by the team of Maciej Lasek is selecting a photo from the place of the catastrophe. However, nobody is thinking about the mechanical process the wing tearing off and breaking of the birch. – As there was a stroke, there was a detachment – explained the colonel Edmund Klich, who in April 2010 was one of few Poles allowed for the place of the catastrophe. Scientific discussions of official experts were stopped at this point.
The hypothesis of the ‘stroke’ and ‘detachment’ were often questioned by the investigations of prof. Wiesław Binienda, an American scientist of Polish origin. According to Małgorzata Wassermann the answer to these investigations were later journeys of the experts from the Polish prosecution. Experts arrived in Smoleńsk two and a half years after the catastrophe, in order to take a fragment of the birch and wood chips from the wing. One of the investigations is to explain a mechanics of the alleged crash, and the second one is to prove if the DNA code from the birch is the same as the wood chips in the wing. – However, we must remember that Polish prosecutors cannot go to Smoleńsk to do these investigations on the spot which they consider as suitable – explains the lawyer Pszczółkowski. At every time the Main Military Prosecution must write a request for legal assistance, in which it points out what and where it will investigate. It gives the collected evidence material to the Russians who send it to Poland only after some time.
Such a procedure – in the opinion of the participants of the conference - raises many doubts about the credibility of the evidence. In lobbies there were discussions about whether the investigation of the key evidence three years after the catastrophe may differ from the target. The investigation whether the Russian services stuck a proper fragment of the airplane into the tree and whether there are proper wood chips on the wing which is mockery at the investigation.
False evidences
Most scientists participating in the Smoleńsk conference support the hypothesis saying about an explosion. It was proved on the basis of mathematical calculations and simulation investigations by prof. Binienda. Also professors from the Warsaw Polytechnics, Mine-Metallurgical Academy in Cracow and the Technical Institute of the Polish Science Academy proved that both the structure of the airplane destruction, arrangement of its fragments as well as the analysis of particular elements of the wreckage prove an explosion. The theory of the explosion was supported also by dr. Stefan Bramski, a worker of the Aviation Institute for years. – In the arrangement of the debris one can notice a phenomenon of aerodynamic separation according to the weight of particular elements, which proves that the hull was disintegrated before the crash into the ground – emphasized dr. Bramski.
An over-three-year experience shows that it is necessary to investigate thoroughly and verify nearly all results of the report of Miller’s commission and MAK. The main causes of the catastrophe may turn out to be completely different from the ones indicated in official documents.
Similarly critical opinions were expressed by the participants of both the legal and the medical panel. Emotions were raised by the pronouncement of the lawyer Małgorzata Wassermann, who spoke about a scandalous way of carrying out an autopsy of her father’s body. Details of the protocol of the exhumation are shocking. The Russians were only simulating the autopsy, and documents made by them are falsification in 100 per cent. However, the what is worse, the bodies of the people of the official delegation of the Polish Republic were profaned.- A spleen and heart were embedded not in the abdomen but in a leg. The bodies were not washed after autopsies, heads were not embedded, an open skull was left in a coffin – Małgorzata Wassermann read.
What came from Moscow, is called in the legal language as certifying a false in a document. There are a few hundred specially crafted documents like that in the Main Military Prosecution. They concern nearly all people who were killed in the catastrophe. – So prosecution acknowledges that it will work on the documents testifying the untruth in a conscious way. In the light of law it must take on an attitude towards these evidences – explains the victim’s daughter.
‘Pseudo-scientists’ from the Polish Science Academy
The conference was preceded by very strong attacks of mainstream media in Poland. For weeks there have been attempts to discredit the sense of discussions and slander professors. The mainstream media did not even hesitate in the issue of qualifications and intellectual achievements of people who were in its scientific committee. And these are people of the highest scientific attempt, members of the most prestigious institution in Poland, which is the Polish Scientific Academy. Only because they bravely decided to investigate the catastrophe, pro-governmental journalists called them ‘madmen’ and ‘pseudo-scientists’. There is a question: If there are not any real scientists in the Polish Scientific Academy, so, where are they?
A sociologist dr. Barbara Fedyszak-Radziejowska is looking for an analogy which shows the present situation. She reminds that the present authority had already made a pressure on the Institute of the National Remembrance and the Jagiellonian University after there appeared critical publications about the past of Lech Wałęsa. – If it had been impossible to make a direct pressure on the Institute of the National Remembrance, a media attack would have been carried out on the whole scientific environment - says Fedyszak-Radziejowska. It was naive to think that such pressures and attacks can only concern social and historic sciences. When it turned out that sciences and technical studies affect political issues, the same mechanism was applied.
The danger of the situation is perceived also by prof. PiotrGliński, a sociologist from the Polish Science Academy. – A mechanism was created in which the society started defend itself from the Smoleńsk catastrophe. The Smoleńsk issue started to be the subject of pressure and investigating this issue is to be considered as unfashionable and be an evidence for nonsense – notices prof. Glilński.
(AA)
"Niedziela" 44/2013