Buthelezi takes Dalai Lama issue to court

IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi has brought an urgent court application to order the government to issue a visa to the Dalai Lama "in the nearest future" to enable him to participate in a postponed peace conference which was to be held in Johannesburg yesterday.

Buthelezi who describes himself as "a political, traditional and spiritual leader for the past 60 years" says he was scheduled to meet the Dalai Lama when he was in South Africa to discuss "issues affecting Tibet, world politics and the spirituality during the present global depression, and to pray together for peaceful and serene elections in SA".

In his affidavit before the Cape Town High Court he says the government's denial of a visa to the Tibetan spiritual and political leader to participate in the conference is unconstitutional because it denied him and others their constitutional rights to meet and pray with the Dalai Lama and to hear and benefit from his message of peace and reconciliation at the conference and during his visit.

If the decision is not rescinded, it would silence and censor the Dalai Lama's religious and political message and violate the constitutional rights of himself and all South Africans rights to political action, to religious freedom, to freedom of thought and expression "which includes the right to receive political messages and addresses" and to dignity.

The order is directed against President Motlanthe, Home Affairs minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and Director-General Mavuso Msimang. Buthelezi adds that as a former Home Affairs minister himself, he knows that denying the visa was "an exclusively political decision as there are no grounds in law to bar him from entry" and that had he been Home Affairs minister still he would not have yielded to political pressure to deny him a visa.

The "unlawful" political motives for barring the Dalai Lama include "the ruling party's relationship with China and its related political fundraising" and its dislike of the Dalai Lama and his foreseeable religious and political messages to South Africans, his struggle for the autonomy of Tibet, and his meetings and prayers with South Africans.

The decision had been "made for individual or group ulterior purposes or gains" and was "informed by impermissible and partisan foreign policy considerations".

"I am bringing this application to review and set aside such a political decision," added Buthelezi, noting that from his expertise and experience he believed that decisions on visas should be "neutral in respect of foreign policy consideration and policies".

28 March 2009
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Background Links:

the Tibet Society of South Africa

Inkatha Freedom Party homepage

Lead-Up Article:
Peace conference postponed
The Johannesburg peace conference due to be held this Friday has been postponed because of the withdrawal of Nobel Peace Prize winners and the Nobel Peace committee after the SA government denied a visa to the Dalai Lama to attend.

Ian Macfarlane of the South Africans Friends of Tibet hailed the decision as a "victory for ubuntu and democracy in South Africa and worldwide. But now the real work begins".
He said that thousands of South Africans and others had expressed their outrage against the government's decision to withhold a visa to the Dalai Lama in an online petition which his organisation had run.

Excerpts from a more recent article at the same [Argus] source:
Dalai Lama ban: 'Dlamini-Zuma did it'
"It has been revealed that the decision to prevent the Tibetan spiritual leader from entering the country was taken by Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and not the cabinet as claimed by her and other government figures."

"Even though the move to prevent the exiled Tibetan from attending a peace conference was not a cabinet decision, government spokesman Themba Maseko created a different impression earlier this week when he claimed that Hogan had defied a "collective" decision.
"The cabinet's position is that we do not want the 2010 World Cup to be used as a platform to advance the political causes of various groups," Maseko said last week.
But he changed his tune on Friday and admitted that the decision had been taken by the Department of Foreign Affairs."

"Government sources said that the Dalai Lama's supporters had planned to stage protests against the Chinese government - causing a diplomatic headache for the country with the Chinese, who have invested R60 billion in the country."

"However, organisations sympathetic to the spiritual leader denied that they had been planning to hijack the programme to highlight the exiled priest's cause.
"There were no protests planned," said Chris Kudla, of the Tibet Society of South Africa."