The government on Wednesday declined to comment further on Health Minister Barbara Hogan’s call for it to apologise for denying the Dalai Lama a visa to attend the South African Peace Conference.
”We don’t want to comment on the minister of health’s comments,” said presidential spokesperson Thabo Masebe.
There were no changes in government’s stance on the matter, which sparked a public outcry, he said.
”For us the matter is closed.”
Earlier, he told the SABC he did not know ”the context” in which the minister had made the comment.
”I don’t know the context … the minister is a member of the Cabinet and I’m sure she would have an opportunity to raise her concerns about this matter in the Cabinet or with the president or with the other colleagues in the Cabinet,” he said.
On Tuesday, Hogan added her voice to a chorus of criticism of the move by the South African government to deny the Dalai Lama a visa to attend the now postponed peace conference.
The Tibetan spiritual leader was to have addressed the conference, aimed at thrashing out ways of using football to fight racism and xenophobia ahead of the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
”Just the very fact that this government has refused entry to the Dalai Lama is an example of a government who is dismissive of human rights,” said Hogan.
”I believe [the government] needs to apologise to the citizens of this country, because it is in your name that this great man who has struggled for the rights of his country … has been denied access.”
The Dalai Lama was refused entry because government felt his presence would draw the world’s attention from World Cup preparations.
”We want the focus to remain on South Africa. A visit by the Dalai Lama would move the focus from South Africa onto issues in Tibet,” said Masebe on Monday.
The decision prompted Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and former president FW de Klerk to pull out of the conference. The Nobel Peace Prize committee indicated it would also not send a representative.
Conference committee member and Nelson Mandela’s grandson Chief Mandla Mandela said the visa saga was ”very disappointing … as the whole peace conference was organised around the laureates”.
Democratic Alliance foreign affairs spokesperson Tony Leon was ”heartened” by Hogan’s ”pro-human rights stance” on the controversial matter.
”Ms Hogan is speaking on behalf of the majority of freedom-loving South Africans who wish to redeem Nelson Mandela’s 1993 pledge that ‘human rights will be the light that guides South Africa’s foreign policy’.
”We need to stop temporising with tyranny and start rekindling the lamp of freedom,” he said in a statement.
On Wednesday the University of the Witwatersrand repeated Hogan’s call for the government to apologise.
”It is a betrayal of everything that we, as South Africans, fought against during the apartheid regime and a gross violation of the values we espouse as a nation,” the university said in a statement.
The government’s actions prevented the Dalai Lama from delivering a public lecture at the university on Saturday, it said.
Government’s move ”ridicules” the values enshrined in the South African Constitution.
”This betrayal of a key constitutional value provides a clear window into the fragility of the democracy we are trying to sustain.” — Sapa