Dalai Lama to join Tutu birthday talk by videolink
SOUTH AFRICA: The Dalai Lama, barred from entering South Africa to
celebrate Desmond Tutu's 80th birthday, will join a videoconference on
Saturday from India where he lives in exile, Tutu's Peace Centre
announced.
Former archbishop Tutu's last-ditch appeal to the South African
government on the eve of his birthday to grant a visa to the Tibetan
spiritual leader was rejected Thursday, marring the start of the
celebrations.
The Dalai Lama said Tuesday he had been forced to cancel his trip due
to delays with his visa, prompting a furious Tutu to accuse President
Jacob Zuma of kowtowing to China, which considers the Dalai Lama a "splittist".
"The inaugural Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture will proceed
on Saturday at the University of the Western Cape, with His Holiness,
the XIVth Dalai Lama joining the event via live videolink from
Dharamsala, his home-in-exile, in India," the Peace Centre announced
late Thursday.
The Dalai Lama and Tutu "will engage in a moderated discussion on the
topic, Peace and Compassion as Catalysts for Change. This is the topic
that His Holiness was to have spoken on had he been allowed to enter
South Africa by the authorities," the Peace Centre said in a statement.
"An empty chair on the stage will symbolise His Holiness' enforced
absence."
The event will be broadcast live by South Africa's public television
network SABC from the University of the Western Cape and live-streamed
over the Internet.
The university was set up in 1960 under the apartheid regime and went
on to become a home to opponents of the white minority government. AFP |