Archbishop Desmond Tutu did not cancel a trip to Alabama because of a personal emergency, as claimed by the organiser of a fund-raising event the Nobel laureate was to attend, Tutu’s assistant said on Wednesday.
”It is my understanding that Archbishop Tutu is returning to South Africa, but there was no family or personal emergency,” Lavinia Crawford-Browne, Tutu’s personal assistant, said.
Crawford-Browne would not discuss the circumstances of the archbishop’s decision not to attend the fund-raiser in Montgomery on Tuesday, but earlier she told The Cape Argus that ”logistical problems” prompted Tutu to call off the visit.
The Reverend James William Webb had said Tutu was about to board a Montgomery-bound plane in Nashville, Tennessee, just after 9am, Tuesday when he received a call from South Africa.
Webb, who said he was with Tutu at the time, said the ”emergency phone call resulted in his departure to South Africa”.
Webb would not discuss the nature of the emergency, except to say it likely involved Tutu’s family.
”This is the most disappointing thing that could happen to us today,” Webb later told a small group of people who had already arrived for the luncheon in Montgomery.
”But this is not a cancellation. It is a postponement.”
Webb helped organise the fund-raising luncheon and a similar fund-raising dinner Tuesday that were to feature Tutu as the guest speaker. The functions went on without Tutu.
Webb said proceeds from the private 300-person luncheon were to support SeedHarvest International’s ”Little Soles for Little Souls,” a project to buy 2 000 pairs of shoes for poor elementary schoolchildren in Montgomery and in South Africa.
Tutu (72) retired from office as Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town in 1996 and was named archbishop emeritus shortly after. He won the 1984 Peace Prize for his anti-apartheid advocacy.
Those who attended Tuesday’s luncheon received copies of his book, ”God Has a Dream,” which maps out his personal voyage through international religious and political turmoil. – Sapa-AP