Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – A group of 14 Nobel Peace Laureates called on Monday on President Jacob Zuma to guarantee the Dalai Lama a visa to South Africa, after the Tibetan spiritual leader was once again blocked by Pretoria.
The Dalai Lama was to attend a summit of Nobel peace prize winners in Cape Town next month, the first-ever meeting of its kind in Africa.
“We are deeply concerned about the damage that will be done to South Africa’s international image by a refusal – or failure – to grant him a visa yet again,” the group said in a letter to Zuma.
Its signatories include Poland’s Lech Walesa, Bangladeshi entrepreneur Muhammad Yunus, Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Northern Irish peacemakers David Trimble and John Hume.
The spiritual leader’s visa applications have been turned down three times over the past five years. “We understand the sensitivities involved, but would like to point out that His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, no longer holds any political office,” the signatories said, adding that he would simply participate in the summit solely in his capacity “as a globally respected spiritual leader”.
The theme of the 13-15 October event will be “Peace. Living it”, and will salute the legacy of Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela. Two other South African Nobel Laureates – former President FW De Klerk, who shared the peace prize with Mandela in 1993, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, will host the event which will attract other Nobel Peace Prize laureates, delegates and organisations such as the European Union and the United Nations.
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes created by the Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments manufacturer, Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine and Literature.
Since 1901, it has been awarded annually (with some exceptions) to those who have “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
