Dalai Lama Denied South African Visa
Generally speaking, Nobel Peace Prize winners don't have too much trouble entering a country in order to attend a peace conference. But that's not the case for the Dalai Lama.
The South African government did not permit him a visa to attend a peace conference in preparation for the 2010 World Cup. Critics claim that the South African government is bowing to pressure from China, but South African officials say that the Chinese government had nothing to do with this decision.
Ronnie Marnoepa of the South African Department of Foreign Affairs defended the government’s decision to Xinhua News, saying "as far as the South African government is concerned, no invitation was extended to the Dalai Lama to visit South Africa," and as a result, maintains "the question of the visas doesn't exist."
Thabo Masebe, a presidential spokesman also defended the government's decision to the local Sapa news agency. He says the government doesn't anything against the Dalai Lama, but that he wants the world to focus on South Africa, not Tibet. He says "a visit now by the Dalai Lama would move the focus from South Africa onto issues in Tibet."
Of course, denying this visit ironically increases the attention on Tibet, especially in the Western media. If the Dalai Lama's visa were approved, he would be mentioned as one of the participants for this conference, rather than the main focus of the story. If anything, the attention from this event has focused international attention on many of the South African issues the government probably does not want to spotlight.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former president F.W. De Klerk, two other conference participants, have threatened to boycott the conference if the Dalai Lama is not issued a visa. De Klerk says the Dalai Lama's exclusion "is irreconcilable with key principles on which our society is based including the principles of accountability, openness and responsiveness and the rights to freedom of expression and free political activity."
It will be interesting to see how this issue evolves. Will the South African government reconsider the Dalai Lama's visa request? If it does, how will China respond? What about others in the international community?