Warsaw- Poland kicked off celebrations on Tuesday marking the 90th anniversary of the country's independence amid controversy at the omission of former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa from the guest list.

The state holiday was to include church services, parades, historic re-enactments and ceremonies at monuments to General Jozef Pilsudski, who led Poland towards independence in 1918. Poland had been partitioned for 123 years by regional powers Austria, Germany and Russia.

Some 800 guests were to attend the events, along with 16 heads of state including the presidents of Georgia, Lithuania and Ukraine, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

But Lech Walesa - a Nobel Peace prize winner and anti-communist icon - was not invited to an evening gala because of long-standing tension with Polish President Lech Kaczynski.

Walesa became a hero to many after leading the strikes in the Gdansk shipyards that challenged Poland's communist regime in the 1980s. He won a court case in 2000 that proved his innocence against allegations of his cooperation with communist secret police.

But Kaczynski has said he knows Walesa was a communist spy, while former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski - the president's twin brother - said he has seen original documents that prove Walesa's guilt.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk, however, came to Walesa's defence recently and said he fears right-wing politicians like the Kaczynski twins use such theories for their own gains. (dpa)