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ANC and the Dalai Lama

It would be remiss of me not to comment of yet another huge lapse in judgement and decision making made by the “ruling party”.  If you do not know, then which rock have you been hiding under, the ANC government has refused a entry visa for the Dalai Lama into South Africa. His mission to attend the 2010 World Cup Peace Conference.

So the official line is that his presence would distract from the World Cup Conference. Shot guys! take one of the people that is synonymous with peace in the world and exclude him from a Peace conference. We already know that China requested that the government did not allow him entrance, and Pretoria has obliged.

The obvious conflicts spring to mind, a party (the ANC) subjected to the worst kind of oppression under the apartheid government, bows to a request from a nation with arguably the worst track record as far as human rights go?? Seems a little strange to me? Clearly China is a huge trade partner and heaven knows we need all of the investment and trade that we can get, but we simply cannot sacrifice our principles.

This is truly a strange and perplexing set of circumstances – come now chaps if anything we need to be bolstering our view on the global stage and not damaging it.  We have surely now succeeded in one thing only and that is focusing away from the conference and placing the spot light squarely on the fact that we have refused the Dalai Lama entry.

So yet again the ANC receives the dung ball – for arguably one of the worst decisions possible.