STATEMENT: The Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation condemns the petrol-bomb attack on the Office of the Representative of Tibet in Pretoria

The Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation strongly condemns the petrol-bomb attack on the Office of the Representative of Tibet in Pretoria, which is also a residence, last night. The attack has caused extensive damage to the property, though we are relieved that no one was injured. This is the second such attack on the Office. That an earlier attempt caused no damage gives no comfort; it tells us that whoever is responsible has returned with greater intent.

We stand with the Tibetan community in South Africa and with everyone who lives and works at the Office. No community in South Africa should have to go to sleep wondering whether their home will be set alight because of who they are, where they come from or what they believe.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama shared a deep and joyful friendship over many decades. When the South African government repeatedly declined to grant His Holiness a visa, including for the Arch’s 80th birthday celebrations in 2011, the Arch spoke out publicly and without hesitation, because he believed that our democracy had been built on the freedom to speak, to worship and to associate. Just a week after we marked what would have been his 95th birthday, an attack like this one calls on all of us to defend those freedoms even more robustly.

Whoever is responsible, this attack falls on a community that already lives with the loss of its homeland. Under the leadership of His Holiness and the Central Tibetan Administration in exile, the Tibetan people have worked tirelessly to protect their culture, religion and language under Chinese rule since 1950. In recent years, UN human rights experts have raised concern about the placement of around a million Tibetan children in state boarding schools, away from their families and their language. The Chinese government has taken control of the administration of Tibetan religious institutions, and Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, recognised by the Dalai Lama as the Panchen Lama in 1995 at the age of six, has not been seen in public since. We reaffirm our solidarity with the Tibetan people and our hope for true freedom of religion, language and culture for all Tibetans, especially those living under Chinese rule.

We call on the South African Police Service to treat this attack with the seriousness it demands, to investigate both incidents fully and without delay, and to provide the Office with adequate protection while that investigation proceeds. We call on government leaders to condemn this attack publicly and unambiguously. Violence intended to intimidate a religious and cultural community strikes at the heart of our constitutional order, and silence from those in authority would send a dangerous message.

The South African government does not formally recognise the Office of the Representative of Tibet. Whatever its diplomatic status, the government has a duty to protect the people who live and work there, and we call on the Department of International Relations and Cooperation to ensure that it does.

Ubuntu teaches us that a person is a person through other people, and that harm done to one of us diminishes all of us. We invite South Africans of every faith and none to reach out to the Tibetan community in solidarity, and to reject every attempt to make any group of people feel unwelcome or unsafe in our country.

The Foundation will continue to stand with the Tibetan community, and with every community made to feel unsafe in our country.

ENDS