Oct 4, 2011: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, visibly shaking with anger, compared the South African government unfavourably with the apartheid regime and threatened to pray for the downfall of the African National Congress (ANC) yesterday after the Dalai Lama said he was forced to pull out of Tutu’s 80th birthday celebrations because he had not been granted an entry visa. “Our government is worse than the apartheid government because at least you would expect it with the apartheid government,” Tutu told a press conference in Cape Town. “Our government we expect to be sensitive to the sentiments of our constitution.” www.guardian.co.uk In a tirade that stunned South African journalists, he went on: “Let the ANC know they have a large majority. Well, Mubarak had a large majority, Gaddafi had a large majority. I am warning you: watch out. Watch out. “Our government — representing me! — says it will not support Tibetans being viciously oppressed by China. You, president Zuma and your government, do not represent me. I am warning you, as I warned the [pro-apartheid] nationalists, one day we will pray for the defeat of the ANC government.” Tutu had invited his fellow Nobel peace laureate to deliver a lecture to mark his milestone birthday in Cape Town on Friday. Officials from the archbishop emeritus’s office started the visa application processin June but met a series of bureaucratic delays. On Tuesday the Dalai Lama’s office finally gave up on the application for the 76-year-old …
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