REUTERS
Dalai Lama
Kamini Padayachee
THE Dalai Lama will finally be given the Mahatma Gandhi International Award for Peace and Reconciliation in India next week.
The exiled Tibetan leader could not travel to SA to receive the award in October because the government failed to give him a visa in time.
The award was created in memory of Mahatma Gandhi by the Gandhi Development Trust in 2003. The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was chosen for being outspoken on a variety of issues.
“The award is in recognition of his humility and compassion in raising issues of peace, conservation of the environment and human rights, and in so doing constantly advocating nonviolent means in true Gandhian tradition,” the trust said yesterday.
The award was to have been bestowed on the Dalai Lama at the Durban City Hall on October 9, but he cancelled his trip to the country after failing to receive his visa.
Gandhi
INLSA
The ceremony went ahead and the award was accepted by the Dalai Lama’s representative in Africa, Sonam Tenzing.
The Dalai Lama was also unable to attend the 80th birthday party of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu in Cape Town.
International Relations and Co-operation Ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela said in October that the department had never refused the Dalai Lama a visa and that he had cancelled his trip himself. The government’s handling of the visa application drew criticism from all quarters, including Cosatu, religious organisations and the SA Human Rights Commission.
Yesterday the Gandhi Development Trust said Ela Gandhi, chairwoman of the trust and Mahatma Gandhi’s granddaughter, would present the award to the Dalai Lama at an international Budd- hist gathering in India on January 4.
Gandhi said yesterday that she was honoured to have been chosen by the trust to deliver the award.
“We had initially wanted to have the Dalai Lama’s representative in Africa take the award to him, but the trust decided it would be more fitting if a trustee personally bestowed it on him.
“I am pleased that I have been given this opportunity as we revere him and respect and value his teachings. We will not hesitate to invite him again to the country, despite what happened with the visa.”
l IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota’s application in the Western Cape High Court, challenging the legality and constitutionality of the government’s handling of the Dalai Lama’s visa application, is expected to be heard next year.
