We Crave for Justice

Before an audience of 450 in the University of Oslo's bright, marble-pillared Aula, or Great Hall, Nobel Committee Chairman Egil Aarvik lavished praise on the recipient of the 64th Nobel Peace Prize. Lech Walesa, said Aarvik, had raised "a burning torch, a shining name" to humanity's enduring dreams of freedom. Walesa, leader of Solidarity, the outlawed Polish independent trade union, did not hear those words. He had stayed behind in Gdansk for fear that the government would not allow him back into Poland.

Walesa's wife Danuta made the trip, however, and after Aarvik spoke, she rose to deliver a 15-minute speech written...