By Tendar Tsering
DHARAMSHALA October 5: The Dalai Lama’s decision to cancel his much anticipated visit to South Africa due to delays in visa has sparked outrage in South Africa with citizens and leaders blasting their government for buckling under China’s pressure.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu who had invited his fellow Nobel Peace laureate to attend his 80th birthday celebrations in Cape town criticised his government for kowtowing to Chinese pressure.
“Our government is worse than the apartheid government because at least you would expect it with the apartheid government,” said Archbishop Tutu after the Tibetan leader’s announcement.
Archbishop Tutu warned the ruling African National Congress (ANC) for going against the principles of the constitution and the sentiments of its citizens.
“Let the ANC know they have a large majority. Well, Mubarak had a large majority, Gaddafi had a large majority. I am warning you: watch out. Watch out,” added the South African Nobel Peace laureate in an emotional televised message.
Similar outcries of opposition against the failure of Jacob Zuma’s government to grant a timely visa to the Dalai Lama, twice, was heard from different sections of the society.
“South African foreign policy is increasingly showing incoherence. It undermines the strong human rights record of this country,” Hennie van Vuuren, director of the Institute for Security Studies in Cape Town told reporters.
Loyiso Nongxa, the vice chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand, in a statement said that South Africa’s long struggle against injustice has been undermined by denying the visa to 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,” said the vice chancellor.
Even trade unions in South Africa criticised their government for choosing yuan over morality – hinting that the decision was apparently taken to appease the country’s largest trading partner.
“Even though China is our biggest trading partner, we should have not exchanged our morality for dollars or yuan,” said COSATU, a powerful coalition of trade unions in a statement.
However, the South African Foreign Ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela told reporters that his government had nothing to say as the “spiritual leader has cancelled his trip.”
The Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the Indian capital New Delhi, in a statement released on Tuesday announced that the Dalai Lama was not willing to cause more inconveniences to the South African government and was calling off the planned visit after continued delays by the African nation in issuing him a visa.
The statement said that the Tibetan leader regretted calling off the visit and the “inconveniences caused to his hosts and the large number of South African public who were keenly waiting to receive him and hear his message.”
