Tutu concerned over Dalai Lama’s visa application

Peace Centre Chairman Dumisa Ntsebeza said in a statement that he had sent four letters to deputy international relations minister Ebrahim Ebrahim. Archbishop Tutu’s 80th birthday celebrations falls on October 7.

Ntsebeza said that the Peace Centre had been unsuccessful in numerous attempts to secure a visa for the Dalai Lama,who has previously been denied entry to South Africa,allegedly for fear of upsetting relations between the Chinese and South African governments. “The only response to the letters received to date has been acknowledgements of receipt,” Ntsebeza said.

Ntsebeza said after being told that the Dalai Lama had not applied for the visa in New Delhi,his representatives had returned to the South African High Commission for the third time to submit the paperwork.

The centre said it began the visa application process in June,although the government stated it only received the application late last month. “It has reached the point that uncertainty over the visa is not only causing deep anxiety to the archbishop and Dalai Lama,but is materially jeopardising the Desmond Tutu Peace Trust’s ability to organise the inaugural Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture,” the statement said.

Tutu had invited the Dalai Lama to be a speaker at the Lecture.

Tutu warned that the government would “shoot itself in the foot” by again refusing his fellow Nobel Peace laureate entry into South Africa,as it had done two years ago when South Africa refused the Dalai Lama a visa to join fellow Nobel laureates at a peace conference.

Deputy International Relations Minister Marius Fransman last week denied that China was putting pressure on South Africa to refuse the visa,but informed sources said that the situation was the same as in 2009,when South Africa barred the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader for fear of jeopardising ties with China,a key trade partner.

China regards the Dalai Lama,who has lived in exile in India since an uprising in 1959,as being a separatist wanting independence for Tibet.

Following China’s objection to the Mexican reception during the Dalai Lama’s Latin American tour,the Brazilian government steered clear during his visit to that country last month for fear of offending its largest trading partner,China.