SA peace conference postponed over visa denial to Dalai Lama

DURBAN: A major peace conference to be attended by Nobel laureates in South Africa was postponed indefinitely after the government, apparently under Chinese pressure, denied a visa to the Dalai Lama, who was invited to attend the meet.

DURBAN: A major peace conference to be attended by Nobel laureates in South Africa was postponed indefinitely after the government, apparently under Chinese pressure, denied a visa to the Dalai Lama, who was invited to attend the meet.

The organizing committee of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa announced at a media conference in Johannesburg that they had no alternative but to postpone the 2010 World Soccer Cup Peace conference that was to be held in the city on March 27.

Its chairman, Irvin Khoza, said they had not taken any decision on whether the conference would be reconvened.

"We are disappointed that we have to take this decision," he said.

The decision follows the withdrawal from the conference Nobel laureates F W de Klerk; Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the Norway Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

"The decision to refuse the visa makes a mockery of the whole purpose of the Peace Conference - which is, among other things, to celebrate South Africa's peaceful transition to constitutional democracy and to highlight the role that soccer can play in promoting peace," former president De Klerk said.

The South African Government had said that it was not in the country's interests to invite the Tibetan spiritual leader at this stage.