We will pray as we prayed for the downfall of the apartheid government, we will pray for the downfall of the government that misrepresents us,” a furious Tutu said at a news conference on South Africa’s failure to grant a visa to Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

”Our government is worse than the apartheid government, because at least you were expecting it from the apartheid government .” said Tutu.

Yesterday, two days before Tutu’s 80th birthday, the Dalai Lama – who first applied in June for a visa to visit South Africa – withdrew his application because he did “not want to create any inconvenience to anyone, individuals or governments,” his office said.

Included in the Tibetan leader’s South African itinerary was delivering the inaugural Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture at the University of the Western Cape.

The Times has learnt reliably that the government was to inform him yesterday that his application had been denied.

This is the second time in two years that the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been refused entry into the country.

The Times understands that the Department of Home Affairs tried to advise the Department of International Relations and Co-operation on how to deal with the Buddhist leader’s visa application, as Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is a former minister of foreign affairs and presided over the refusal of his visa in 2009.

Home Affairs sought a meeting with the Presidency and the International Relations and Co-operation Department on the matter but the meeting never took place.

At a press conference called by the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre late yesterday afternoon, Tutu sent shivers through the audience.

“The trouble I think is that the ANC reckons that the freedom that we enjoy is due to them. They reckon everyone else is just a sideline,” he said.

Tutu, who shouted and wagged a finger as he spoke, said Zuma did not represent him.

“Hey Mr Zuma, you and your government don’t represent me. You represent your own interests.”

The retired archbishop spoke of how disgusted he had been when he had sat in parliament during Zuma’s state of the nation address, listening to “this president of ours” failing to pay tribute to the religious leaders who helped in the fight against apartheid.

He reminded the gathering that it was religious leaders who in 1989 organised 30000 people to march against oppression.

“Let the ANC know that they cannot airbrush us out,” he said.

Government spokesman Jimmy Manyi responded later: “The Arch seemed very angry. He is very angry. We note that the Arch is very angry and we will respond in due course.”

ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu said last night: “We are appealing to the archbishop to calm down and work together with the ANC and its government, first, on the Dalai Lama issue and, second, we appeal to the archbishop not to pray for the demise of the ANC-led government, but instead to work together with the ANC and pray for the ANC-led government to deliver a better life for all the people of South Africa.”

Earlier yesterday, International Relations spokesman Clayson Monyela said the authorities had been processing the Dalai Lama’s visa application when the South African High Commissioner’s office in New Delhi received a statement from the Tibetan spiritual leader saying he was cancelling his trip.

“We have not denied him a visa. There was no refusal by the South African government to grant him a visa. He has, for the reasons he has expressed in the statement, decided to cancel the trip when the process was still under way,” said Monyela.

It was unfair for the Dalai Lama’s office to have expected a visa to be issued in such a short time. Monyela said the Dalai Lama’s original passport was submitted only on September 20. Previously, a photocopy of the passport had been submitted as the Dalai Lama had been travelling.

“There is no country in the world that can process a visa without the original passport,” he said.

But at the press conference yesterday advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, chairman of the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre, said he was “saddened” by Monyela’s attitude. Monyela’s implication that the Dalai Lama did not know how to apply for a visa was insulting to the leader, his office and the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre.

Ntsebeza said he had written to the Deputy Minister of International Relations, Ebrahim Ebrahim, and contacted the director-general of the Department of Home Affairs, Mkhuseli Apleni, and even Dlamini-Zuma.

Wits University has organised a march of protest at the government’s “silencing [of] the voice of His Holiness the Dalai Lama”.

Vice-Chancellor Loyiso Nongxa said: “The university condemns the state for once again not granting a visa for this stalwart of peace to enter our country.”

Matthew McDonald, a research analyst for the Centre for Chinese Studies at the University of Stellenbosch, said the issue had escalated “beyond proportion”.

“There is now suspicion about Chinese pressure, even if we don’t know if there was any in this case. There are questions around the declared value basis of South Africa’s foreign policy – and a question about how sovereign South Africa is in its decisions. There is an unhappy civil society .” he said.

Paul Graham, executive director of Idasa, said it was difficult to understand why the government had not granted a “tourist visa”.

“Of course visas are always at the discretion of the state to whom an application is made, but on the assumption that a correct and timely application was made, a refusal must inevitably raise questions about whether the decision was influenced by a wish not to offend a critical trading partner,” he said.

- Additional reporting by Sipho Masondo, Philani Nombembe and Sapa

Civil rights campaigners reacted furiously to the news, claiming that South Africa had buckled under pressure from China, its biggest trading partner, which regards the Dalai Lama as a dangerous separatist.

Tutu had invited his fellow Nobel peace laureate to deliver a lecture to mark his birthday in Cape Town on Friday. Officials from the archbishop emeritus’s office started the visa application process in June but encountered a series of bureaucratic delays.

On Tuesday the Dalai Lama’s office finally gave up on the application for the 76-year-old. “His holiness was to depart for South Africa on 6 October, but visas have not been granted yet,” a spokesperson for the office said. “We are, therefore, now convinced that for whatever reason or reasons, the South African government finds it inconvenient to issue a visa to … the Dalai Lama.”

A candlelit vigil outside the South African parliament in Cape Town on Monday night drew about 250 protesters demanding the Tibetan spiritual leader be allowed into the country.

There was bitter disappointment on Tuesday morning when it was announced that the eight-day trip had been called off. Civil rights campaigners blamed the government.

Nomfundo Walaza, chief executive of the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre, said: “I’m shocked and dismayed that they would let it come to this point. I still had hope after the vigil last night that we would wake up this morning to hear the visa had been issued.

“It’s a shame. I think it’s the darkest moment in the history of this country for this to be allowed to happen. We worked so hard on this, we put our heart and soul into it. For a religious leader of the Dalai Lama’s standing to be refused is not acceptable. It’s sad that this is what our democracy is all about.”

Walaza, who said she had not yet spoken to Tutu, added: “I’m sure he is devastated.”

Ela Gandhi, who had planned to present the Dalai Lama with a peace prize in the name of her grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi, said: “I’m very disappointed. We were looking forward to him coming and to presenting the award. I really feel the whole situation has been handled so badly. It’s discourteous for a person of his stature to be told to wait for so long. For a person of peace to be treated like this is wrong.”

She added: “Everybody thinks this is because of pressure from China. It’s very sad that another country is allowed to dictate terms to our government. It’s going back to apartheid times. I am ashamed of my own country.”

Activists who had been campaigning for the spiritual leader’s visit joined the condemnation.

Hennie van Vuuren, director of the Institute for Security Studies, in Cape Town, said: “I’m deeply disappointed that the South African government didn’t find the wisdom to do the right thing. It makes no sense given that the Dalai Lama recently went to Brazil and Mexico. It shows the issue cannot be about China alone. South African foreign policy is increasingly showing incoherence. It undermines the strong human rights record of this country. It flies in the face of the desire of most South Africans to uphold our constitutional democracy.”

South African foreign ministry officials have consistently denied accusations they have been bowing to pressure from Beijing. Asked for his reaction to the Dalai Lama’s decision, a spokesman, Clayson Monyela, said: “We don’t have a reaction. He’s cancelled his trip and that’s it. We have not said no. We’ve not refused him a visa; the visa was still being processed. It’s only on 20 September that he submitted his full paperwork. In some countries, a visa can take two months. I don’t know why people are criticising the government.”

The Dalai Lama visited South Africa in 1996, meeting Nelson Mandela, but was prevented from attending a Nobel laureates’ conference in the country two years ago, when the government said his visit would distract from preparations for the football World Cup. At the time, Tutu called the decision disgraceful, and accused the authorities of bowing to pressure from China.

South Africa’s official opposition has added its voice to the criticism of the stalled visa.

Stevens Mokgalapa, shadow deputy foreign minister for the Democratic Alliance, said: “The inescapable conclusion is that the South African government has predictably strung the Dalai Lama along to make it impossible for him to plan his trip. That way it could avoid making a decision that would either upset the Chinese or upset millions of peace-loving South Africans and citizens around the globe.

“But by delaying the decision on the Dalai Lama’s visa, the government made its choice. It allowed China to dictate its foreign policy. This is a sad day for those of us who believe in a sovereign foreign policy based on ubuntu [a humanist philosophy] and human rights. It is not acceptable that the government has allowed a breach of this sovereignty by bowing to pressure from a foreign power.”

While the Dalai Lama is excluded, other leading international activists will join three days of birthday events. The U2 singer Bono is expected to speak at the launch of a biography, Tutu: The Authorised Portrait, in Cape Town on Thursday.

Bono has also reportedly been invited to join former the US president Jimmy Carter, the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, and the British businessman Richard Branson at a picnic at a vineyard on Friday. A public church commemoration will be held earlier that day.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama meet the media in Cape Town in this August 21, 1996 file photo.

South Africa’s foreign policy was slammed as naive and contrary to the Constitution after the Dalai Lama on Tuesday cancelled his planned trip to South Africa because he was not granted a visa in time.

The Desmond Tutu Peace Centre said the decision, after a fruitless five-week wait for a visa to attend the archbishop emeritus’ 80th birthday, marked a sad day.

“I do not even have the words to say how sad I feel. This is the darkest day,” said the centre’s spokeswoman Nomfundo Wazala.

In a statement issued in India, where he lives in exile, the Dalai Lama said he had wanted to spare the South African government any further inconvenience but was sorry to disappoint his followers.

“His Holiness was to depart for South Africa on October 6, but visas have not been granted yet,” the Dalai Lama said in the statement.

“We are, therefore, now convinced that for whatever reason or reasons, the South African government finds it inconvenient to issue a visa to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

“His Holiness has thus decided to call off his upcoming visit to South Africa, and he regrets the inconvenience caused to his hosts and the large number of the South African public who are keenly waiting to receive him and hear his message.”

It is widely believed that the government buckled under pressure from China — its biggest trading partner — which deems the Tibetan spiritual leader a “splittist” and discourages foreign leaders from hosting him.

Civil society coalition “Let Him in Now!” which held a candlelight vigil at Parliament on Monday to demand a visa for the Dalai Lama, said that although the visit was cancelled the issues at stake could not be ignored.

“The Dalai Lama’s humble decision should not in any manner remove the focus on the unaccountable, secretive and disrespectful way in which the South African government has dealt with this matter.

“This matter once again highlights that SA’s foreign policy is misaligned with our Constitution and the values contained in it.”

The Dalai Lama visited South Africa in 1996, 1999 and 2004 and was received by former presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki.

In 2009, he was refused entry by the Zuma administration to attend a conference of Nobel laureates.

Political analyst Steven Friedman said the shift in foreign policy was likely, and wrongly, influenced by South Africa’s recent inclusion in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India and China and South Africa) bloc of emerging economic powers.

“The reality is that now the primary economic relationship we have in the world is the BRICS relationship and this leads to decisions like this.

“But the idea, quite frankly, that international trading relations would be made or broken by receiving the Dalai Lama shows a total misunderstanding of the way the world works.”

He said United States President Barack Obama clearly understood this when he received the Dalai Lama at the White House in July in defiance of China’s stance on Tibet.

“China invests in Africa because it has important economic and strategic relationships here. Our relationship does not hinge on whether we grant entrance to the Dalai Lama or not.

“South Africans should be really worried that they have people in positions of authority who think it is the way it works.”

Government spokesman Jimmy Manyi declined to comment.

The Dalai Lama had planned to spend eight days in South Africa.

He was due to deliver an inaugural peace lecture at the University of the Western Cape as part of Tutu’s birthday celebrations and was also invited to speak at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Wits vice chancellor and principal Loyiso Nongxa expressed his dismay at the turn of events.

“We, as South Africans, have a moral obligation to provide a platform for all voices to be heard, including the voice of the Dalai Lama.

“The state’s deliberate indecision ridicules the values pertaining to freedom of speech, expression and movement enshrined in our Constitution, and the freedoms for which so many South African have lived, and indeed died,” he said.

The Congress of SA Trade Unions has criticised the government for allowing China to “dictate” its foreign policy.

“Even though China is our biggest trading partner, we should not exchange our morality for dollars or yuan,” Cosatu’s Western Cape leader Tony Ehrenreich said.

The Democratic Alliance said it would submit parliamentary questions asking International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane to explain the government’s handling of the matter.

“The inescapable conclusion is that the South African government has predictably strung the Dalai Lama along to make it impossible for him to plan his trip,” spokesman Stevens Mokgalapa said.

“But by delaying the decision on the Dalai Lama’s visa, the government made its choice. It allowed China to dictate its foreign policy.”

Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi commented that it “was another blight on our reputation that the South African government gave in to pressure”.

Businesswoman Mamphela Ramphele said both Tutu and the Dalai Lama had been unfairly treated.

“Isn’t it ironic that when he’s celebrating his 80th birthday, the most fundamental right, the right to association, is being taken away from him?” Ramphele said.

This press alert was issued for the Office of Archbishop Tutu by Oryx Media.

]]> http://www.tutu.org/news/news/general/let-him-in-now-no-pass-laws-for-the-dalai-lama/feed/ 0 http://www.tutu.org/news/news/public-debate-the-sa-bill-of-rights/ http://www.tutu.org/news/news/public-debate-the-sa-bill-of-rights/#comments Thu, 10 Mar 2011 09:26:17 +0000 admin http://www.tutu.org/news/?p=234 PUBLIC DIALOGUE: THE SA BILL OF RIGHTS
IS IT WORTH MORE THAN THE PAPER IT IS WRITTEN ON?

In keeping with Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s legacy of being a moral voice in society, the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre invites you to join us in this dialogue.

While there were some people who were offended by the Archbishop’s call, and responded harshly, the overwhelming majority of people who entered the debate were very supportive.

“We would like to say thank you to all the people who supported us through this difficult period,” Archbishop Tutu said. “We received messages from individuals and faith-based organisations, from across the world including from Palestine and Israel. But mostly, we would like to say thank you to so-called ordinary members of South Africa’s Jewish community.”

Participating panelists:

Dr Di McIntyre – UCT Health Economics Unit

Elroy Paulus – Black Sash

Alex van den Heever – Independent Economist

 Date:  1 December 2010

Dialogue starts promptly at: 18h00 to 19h30

Venue:  Mowbray Town Hall, Main Road, Mowbray, Cape Town

 RSVP: Your attendance by Friday ,  26^th November  2010 -  toni@tutu.org

or  call Toni Doman – (021) 525 1980

 This is a free event – attendance numbers are limited

(Refreshments will be served before the event)

http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2010/10/15/group-areas-still-with-us