Chinese Parliamentary Chairman Li Peng's planned two-day visit to Lithuania was unexpectedly cut to a mere three hours last week.

Chinese Parliamentary Chairman Li Peng's planned two-day visit to Lithuania was unexpectedly cut to a mere three hours last week, when he refused to enter the Lithuanian parliament building where an international meeting on the crimes of communism was held. Li Peng arrived Sept. 5 at 3:30 p.m. and was gone by dinner time. His meeting with Lithuanian Parliament Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis, several Lithuanian members of Parliament and Foreign Minister Algirdas Saudargas was held in the airport's VIP hall, because the International Congress on the Evaluation of Crimes of Communism, also known as Nuremberg 2, was meeting in Lithuania's Parliament. The Chinese delegation never left the airport. This anti-Communist forum was organized by public organizations of political prisoners and human rights organizations of Lithuania and other Central and Eastern European countries. Participants from Western countries also took part. Some Lithuanian MPs were actively supporting organizers of the tribunal, which has moral, not legal, jurisdiction. Li Peng has been hounded by news reports during his tour of northern Europe for ordering the invasion of Tiananmen Square in 1989, leading to the deaths of hundreds of protesters, mostly students, gathered there to protest Communist rule. During the meeting of Lithuanian and Chinese parliamentary chairmen in the VIP hall on Sept. 5, 10 Lithuanian protesters picketed the Vilnius International Airport, waving "Free Tibet" posters, and portraits of The Dalai Lama. Opposition Democratic Labor Party MP Gediminas Kirkilas accused the ruling Conservative Party of bad will by not postponing the anti-Communist forum in Parliament during Li Peng's visit.