As the world focuses its attention on events in the Persian Gulf, a journalist for one of Poland's largest independent newspapers warned that the happenings in Eastern Europe should not be overlooked.

"We are mesmerized with the crisis in the gulf," Jacek Kalabinski, a senior U.S. correspondent for Gazeta, told an audience in Kern Auditorium last night, "and we are turning a blind eye to events of epic proportions in Eastern Europe."

Kalabinski said the United States is reluctant to voice support for the independence of Lithuania because the Bush administration does not want to alienate a possible ally in the Soviet Union during the gulf war.

He said failure of the Soviet Union to meet U.S. expectations of their participation in the war or an arms agreement, would cause the U.S. to register support for Lithuania's cause.

The rest of Eastern Europe backs Lithuania's call for greater freedom, Kalabinski said, but the governments are still reluctant to recognize its independence.

Although free elections were held in Eastern Europe, democratic candidates are losing to candidates of nationalist or communist tendencies in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. The losses result from Eastern Europeans' fears of democracy because they have lived under the communist system for so long, he said.

He added that a lack of knowledge of a market economy will make economic changes difficult.

"The Eastern Europeans have no idea what (a) market economy is all about", Kalabinski said, citing the lack of familiarity with a uniform tax system as a problem in the transition.

Some students responded with disappointment because of dashed expectations of the speech.

Dean Brennan (sophomore-secondary education), who had learned of Eastern Europe's dissatisfaction toward the market economy because of unforeseen repercussions, said he was misinformed of the nature of Kalabinski's speech.

"I am disappointed because I thought it would be a lot more dramatic (judging from its title)." Brennan said. "I thought it would be a fund-raiser for socialist nations."

"I thought his speech was a vague assessment of the underlying problems in Eastern Europe." Gene Saladna (sophomore-film) said, "I did not anticipate the topics that he hit on."