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Dalai Lama saga continues in S.Africa

By Fatima Schroeder | Independent Online

The Dalai Lama gestures as he arrives to a attend a Tibetan Arts and Culture exhibition in Delhi on 30 March 2009. The Dalai Lama on Tuesday brushed off South Africa’s refusal to grant him a visa, saying it was the result of Chinese pressure that had backfired on Beijing. Fresh efforts are on to bring him to South Africa.File photo/AFP/Manan Vatsyayana/India

Fresh efforts are under way to give the Dalai Lama an opportunity to visit South Africa.

South African Friends of Tibet is to host a meeting on Friday to set a date for an alternative peace conference following the government’s refusal to allow the Tibetan leader into the country, and the postponement of the initial conference as a result.

This has emerged in papers SAFT filed at the Cape High Court on Tuesday as part of an urgent application lodged by IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi against President Kgalema Motlanthe and Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula.

Buthelezi wants the court to order the government to provide the Dalai Lama with a visa, and SAFT has applied to be included in the application as an amicus curiae (friend of the court).

In the application, Buthelezi says the government’s decision was politically motivated and that there were no legal grounds to refuse the Dalai Lama a visa.

He said he based this on his experience as home affairs minister.

Buthelezi added that if a visa was not issued urgently, the Dalai Lama would not return to South Africa any time soon and the “damage to the image of our country would be irreparable”.

SAFT co-founder Ian Duncan MacFarlane said in an affidavit that the association had an interest in the relief Buthelezi sought and that it believed the Dalai Lama’s visit would benefit South Africans.

He said China had consistently used its influence to isolate the Dalai Lama internationally.

“This refusal to issue travel documentation to the Dalai Lama is an example of increasingly transparent pressure from China on sovereign states to deny travel documentation to the Dalai Lama.”

He said the inescapable inference was that the incident was as a result of pressure from the Chinese government, or anxiety not to compromise relations with China.

MacFarlane said a group of interested South African organisations were attempting to arrange an alternative conference.

A letter was sent to the Justice and Peace Commission of the SA Catholic Bishops’ Conference to invite it to the meeting to discuss a new “Ubuntu” peace conference to which the Dalai Lama should be invited.

South African Nobel peace laureates and the FW De Klerk Foundation have also been asked to attend the meeting.

“It is SAFT’s intention that an alternative conference be convened as soon as possible and, to that end, SAFT will take the necessary steps to facilitate an alternative peace conference as expeditiously as possible,” MacFarlane said.

He said the association wanted to resolve the issue speedily.

The application was to be heard today before Judge Rosheni Allie.

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