Dalai Lama's South Africa conference ban causes uproar

[bemildred]

Xpost with LBN. I know it's not really I/P, but the racism conference has got a lot of time down here.

Two of South Africa's Nobel peace prize winners, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and FW de Klerk, have pulled out of a Johannesburg conference to fight racism after what they branded as Pretoria's "disgraceful" decision to ban the Dalai Lama from attending following Chinese pressure.

The Nobel peace prize committee also said it would boycott this Friday's conference, which is dedicated to tackling racism ahead of the 2010 World Cup.

The row threatens to draw in Nelson Mandela, who, with his fellow South African laureates, invited the Tibetan spiritual leader, and further embarrasses South Africa, which has been accused of squandering its moral authority since ending apartheid by blocking UN security council moves to pressure rogue governments in Burma and Zimbabwe.

Tutu, who won the prize for his resistance to white rule, told Johannesburg's Sunday Independent newspaper he will not attend the conference to discuss how to use the World Cup preparations to combat racism and xenophobia if the Tibetan spiritual leader is not present.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/23/dalai-lama-south-africa-world-cup-ban

[IndianaGreen]

1. What do China and Israel have in common?

A pathological reaction to anyone that criticizes them.

Israel's occupation of Palestine: 41 years

China's occupation of Tibet: 58 years

[dave_p]

2. Hey, wow

WTF has HH the Dalai Lama to do with fighting racism? I think he's essentially a decent guy, but he's basically a national irredentist. It's chalk commenting on cheese: no loss conference-wise. One might say the same of Messrs Tutu and de Klerk, neither of whom exactly spearheaded the South African people's struggle, for all the efforts of the MSM to concoct an alternative to the then unwholesomely revolutionary ANC.