If the government never intends to let the Dalai Lama visit SA again, it should come out straight and say so, says Peter Fabricius.
Pretoria - The government should make its Dalai Lama policy explicit. If it never intends to let him visit this country again, it should come out straight and say so.
Instead of constantly repeating the charade that every one of his visa applications is being carefully considered on its merits.
This just creates embarrassment, expense and inconvenience for him and the many others involved in his attempted visits.
Which is what seems to be happening again now, for the third time.
The Tibetan Buddhist leader, who lives in exile in India, applied for a visa last month to attend the 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates to be held next month in Cape Town.
It is being organised by the foundations representing the four South African laureates, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, FW de Klerk and Albert Luthuli.
The Dalai Lama’s representative in South Africa, Nangsa Choedon, told us that Anil Sooklal, the Deputy Director General for Asia and the Middle East, a very senior official, had informed her last week that the visa would not be granted.
He said a visit by the Dalai Lama would disturb relations with China at a sensitive time when many senior official visits and meetings were taking place.
Sooklal had assured her the Dalai Lama would be given a visa to visit some time soon.
As a result she said: “For now the Dalai Lama has decided to cancel his trip to South Africa.”
But then on Thursday Dirco spokesman Clayson Monyela said the visa application was still being “taken through normal due process”.
So, who should we believe? Let us judge by the record.
In 2011, when the Dalai Lama applied for a visa to attend Tutu’s 80th birthday party in Cape Town, his office heard nothing for weeks.
Two days before the event he called off the visit because his office said he had still not received a visa and needed to finalise his travel arrangements.
Then, all of a sudden, Monyela and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe both said, what a pity, he was about to get a visa! Yeah, right.
But they were rather caught out when a Home Affairs official testified – in a later case brought by IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota against the government for withholding the visa – that officials had declined the visa to avoid offending China.
In 2009, while Motlanthe was President, the government denied the Dalai Lama a visa to come to a similar event to the one next month, a gathering of Nobel Peace Laureates, which was associated with the World Cup of soccer the next year.
The Chinese embassy made very clear it would be very displeased if he came, but then-Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma at first said that the visa had been denied because the government feared the Dalai Lama’s presence would divert attention from the World Cup.
A few days later she added: “Let’s be honest” – it was also about avoiding putting SA on a “collision course” with China.
She seemed to have in mind Beijing’s recent cancellation of a China-EU summit because then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy – who was also then-EU president – had just met the Dalai Lama.
Two months later her successor, the present International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, assured Parliament that the Dalai Lama was welcome to visit South Africa.
Since then, of course, South Africa has been admitted to Brics – the Brazil, Russia, India and China forum – which has apparently become the linchpin of our foreign policy. So a visit by the Dalai Lama seems less likely than ever.
Clearly our foreign and human rights policy shouldn’t be beholden to anyone else. And what China would do if the Dalai Lama visited, has never been tested.
But if Pretoria really fears its important relationship with China would be jeopardised by a visit from the Dalai Lama, it should be honest enough to say so.
* Peter Fabricius is Independent Newspapers’ foreign editor.