Published by: World Tibet Network News Tuesday, January 13, 1998

PARIS, Jan 13 (AFP) - China's leading dissident, pro-democracy leader Wei Jinsheng, arrived in France for a weeklong visit Tuesday slamming President Jacques Chirac for failing to honour the country's longstanding tradition of battling for human rights.

As Wei prepared to meet the press after stepping off the train from London, he and fellow-dissident Liu Qinq published an open letter critical of Chirac. The letter marks the 100th anniversary of writer Emile Zola's legendary "J'Accuse", the 1898 editorial that turned the tide of opinion in favour of French Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason.

Wei was jailed for 18 years in China for his pro-democracy activities but freed on medical parole November 16 after spending all but six months of his sentence in Chinese prisons and labour camps.

Immediately after his release, he left immediately for the United States.

"J'Accuse", the two Chinese opponents said in the letter in the La Croix daily, "opened a new era for humanity ... In spite of the distance, the Chinese received Emile Zola's message."

"After many failures and several victories they attacked time after time the despotic regime in power for thousands of years."

The January 13 front-paged "J'Accuse" by the famed novelist slammed the French army for the mistrial of Dreyfus, accused of spying for the Germans amid a mounting wave of anti-Semitism.

"If we have succeeded in remaining unshaken up until now it is certainly because we were encouraged by the spirit of the defence of human rights symbolised in part by France and by Zola," the two dissidents said.

"But what brings us despair is that Jacques Chirac, president of the French Republic that was built on the principles of human rights and democracy, has on the contrary shown that his government is more interested in profit than in human rights."

The long letter, on two pages of the paper, went on to criticise Chirac for last year reversing the country's attitude towards China's widely-condemned rights record.

In April last year, as Chirac prepared to pay an official visit to China, France, followed by Germany, Greece, Italy and Spain, backed out of its traditional support for a UN motion censuring China's approach to human rights. The United States and 13 other western countries voted for the motion, but were defeated.

Critics said Paris was putting commercial interests ahead of humanitarian goals in the country.

On arriving in China in May, in the first visit by a French head of state in 14 years, Chirac within hours clinched a 1.7 billion-dollar bonanza of aircraft purchases.

He also signed a "global partnership" document covering a range of subjects including the establishment of a multipolar world order and called for the release of top Chinese and Tibetan dissidents in a list of 17 cases handed over in Beijing.

China for its part recognised the "universality" of human rights in a joint declaration signed by Chirac and his Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin.

"The two parties emphasise that efforts tending to promote and protect human rights must respect ... the universality of human rights, while at the same time taking fully into account particularities on all sides."

Beijing on Tuesday warned Britain and France against holding any high level meetings with Wei.

Wei "is a criminal who has broken Chinese law," foreign ministry spokesman Shen Guofang said at a regular press briefing.

The British government on Monday expressed admiration for Wei and concern for human rights in China after the activist visited the Foreign Office in London.