Cape Town - President Jacob Zuma and his international relations and home affairs ministers should expressly confirm the Dalai Lama would have received a visa if his travel plans had not been frustrated by unreasonable delays, DA federal chairman Wilmot James challenged on Sunday.
This latest twist in a terse public spat followed the Presidency taking exception to “inaccurate and misleading” remarks by Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille, who cited the refusal of a visa for the Tibetan spiritual leader as reason for the cancellation of the Nobel Peace Laureates World Summit which had been scheduled for Cape Town later this month.
“We take strong exception to the utterances of the mayor of Cape Town, which have cast aspersions on the integrity of the South African government and the country,” said Zuma’s spokesman Mac Maharaj, adding the Dalai Lama’s office had informed the government he would not be attending the summit and, “thus effectively cancelling his visa application”.
However, James would have none of it. “Mac Maharaj’s pathetic excuses... cannot hide President Zuma’s lack of independent mind and spirit to hold communist China at bay. If we continue along this path, it is only a matter of time until our politics are overwhelmed by communist China’s neo-mercantilist interest. If directing the ANC in Parliament from Luthuli House is not vulgar enough, wait until Beijing directs our affairs in Parliament,” James said.
The exiled Dalai Lama has for long lobbied for Tibet’s independence from China. While he in August 1996 met Nelson Mandela, his former government of national unity deputy FW de Klerk and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, and in November 2004 again met Mandela and IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, his three visa applications since 2009 have been steeped in controversy.
Instead of pursuing them, he withdrew the applications - first in 2009 for a peace summit, in 2011 for Tutu’s 80 birthday bash and again last month.
The 2011 visa debacle led to court action by the IFP and United Democratic Movement - and a 2012 Supreme Court of Appeal judgment finding the government was wrong to refuse a visa without giving reasons.
Last month French news agency AFP reported the Dalai Lama’s representative in South Africa said the government “conveyed by phone to me they will not be able to grant the visa for the reason that it would disturb relations between China and SA”.
The visa wrangle led to Nobel peace laureates last month calling for a boycott of the gathering, which would have been a first for Africa and in honour of Mandela’s legacy and South Africa’s 20 years of democracy.
FW de Klerk Foundation executive director Dave Steward said at the weekend that, if, as Maharaj said, South Africa held all Nobel laureates in high respect, “would the appropriate response not have been to reply immediately (to the boycott call), and inform them that the Dalai Lama, according to the South African government, had withdrawn his visa application and that this misunderstanding could be easily cleared up if he re-submitted it”.
Throughout the visa saga, the International Relations Department maintained there was no pressure from the Chinese government.
On September 4, the department issued a statement saying its New Delhi, India, office dealing with the Dalai Lama’s visa application was notified in writing he had cancelled his trip to South Africa and this meant “the matter was closed”.
Cape Argus