Published by: World Tibet Network News, Wednesday, Apr 17, 1996

PARIS, Apr 10, 1996 (Reuter) - Riot police stifled the first demonstration to mar a controversial visit by Chinese Premier Li Peng Wednesday as he was about to start talks with French leaders expected to yield up to $2 billion in contracts.

About 100 Amnesty International activists briefly unfurled a banner proclaiming ``Li Peng ignores human rights. We don't'' across the central Champs-Elysees avenue before riot police armed with tear-gas guns removed them.

Protesters blew whistles and displayed posters recalling the crushing of the 1989 student-led democracy movement in Beijing.

After an hour-long standoff in which police surrounded the demonstrators on the pavement, several activists were bundled into police vans and driven away, sirens blaring.

The demonstration, accusing France of sweeping China's political prisoners, forced labor and executions under the red carpet of a welcome fit for a head of state, was near Li's official residence but out of earshot of it.

``China executes three times as many people as the rest of the world put together,'' said Michel Forst, head of Amnesty's French branch.

``French leaders mustn't forget human rights when they negotiate trade deals,'' he added before being led away.

Some 30 human rights groups and trade unions planned to march from Trocadero Square toward the Chinese Embassy later on Thursday, but police barred them from approaching the mission.

They charge that for the sake of business, France ignored Li's role in the crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest and China's repression of dissidents and occupation of Tibet.

Foreign Minister Herve de Charette denied in a radio interview that France was turning a blind eye to human rights. ``There is no question of sacrificing human rights for trade. We are not putting our principles away in our pockets,'' he said.

``If France discusses (human rights) and forges a partnership with China, then it can hope to make China shift its stance,'' de Charette told France-Inter radio.

Li was due to visit the Senate before signing a series of accords with Prime Minister Alain Juppe Wednesday evening.

France, lagging in the fast-growing Chinese market due to a 1992 row over arms sales to Taiwan, hopes the visit will lead to contracts worth at least $2 billion, with European planemaker Airbus Industrie taking the lion's share.

But many of the agreements are expected to be letters of intent rather than firm orders.

When Chinese President Jian Zemin visited Paris in 1994, China signed letters of intent worth $2.6 billion. It later placed only $180 million worth of business.

Of the 30-plus Airbus aircraft under negotiation, only 10 of the 150-seater A320s and three of the long-range A340 planes are expected to be firm orders, with China taking options on 20 more A320s, industry sources said.

``We cannot today be indifferent, blind, distant toward a country which ... has posted economic growth of 10 percent a year for the past 10 years,'' de Charette said.

Many newspapers gave Li a hostile welcome, accusing Paris of sacrificing human rights on the altar of lucrative contracts.

``Li Peng in Paris: The Customer is King,'' said the leftist daily Liberation. ``France welcomes Li Peng with open contracts,'' headlined the Roman Catholic daily La Croix.

``Mr. Li goes shopping,'' said the right-wing France-Soir, branding him ``the machine-gunner of Tiananmen.''

Shortly after Li's arrival Tuesday, more than 200 members of parliament urged China to pull out of Tibet which it occupied in 1950.