Nobel peace summit cancelled after South Africa refuses visa for Dalai Lama

[Eva Libre]

Jacob Zuma’s government accused of ‘selling its sovereignty’ to China for refusing to admit exiled Tibetan spiritual leader

Agence France-Press in Dharamsala

The Dalai Lama flanked by fellow Nobel peace laureates Shirin Ebadi (right) and Jody Williams in Dharamsala.
Photograph: Lobsang Wangyal/AFP/Getty Images

The Dalai Lama has accused South Africa of bullying after authorities there failed to give him a visa to attend a summit of Nobel peace laureates.

His comments, at a ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of his 1989 Nobel peace prize, followed claims that the peace summit had been cancelled after several other laureates pulled out in protest.

“The Nobel peace summit scheduled to be held in South Africa to honour the legacy of our fellow laureate, the late Nelson Mandela, has been cancelled as the South African government wouldn’t allow me to attend it,” the Dalai Lama said in a speech in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala where he is based. “This is sort of bullying a simple person.”

South Africa has been criticised in the past for refusing to grant the Dalai Lama a visa, reportedly under pressure from China.

This year a number of laureates pulled out of the summit, scheduled to be held next week in Cape Town, in protest at South Africa’s failure to admit the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

The Dalai Lama thanked his fellow peace laureates for their efforts, saying they had worked hard to resolve the issue.

He made his comments at a ceremony in Dharamsala attended by two fellow laureates – Jody Williams, founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, and the Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi – both of whom are boycotting the South Africa summit.

Williams accused President Jacob Zuma’s government of “selling its sovereignty” to China in a speech at the Dalai Lama’s monastery.

“Not a single laureate is happy about that decision [to cancel]. Fourteen laureates protested to President Zuma, pressuring him, begging him, to give a visa to His Holiness [the Dalai Lama] so that we all could be together and celebrate in South Africa the legacy of Nelson Mandela.

“We could not go, and the message we were sending … was a message of protest to China. It was a message of protest to governments who sell their soul and their sovereignty to China, as South Africa did,” she said to loud applause from the audience of hundreds of Tibetan refugees.