ONU : Sommet du Millenium pour la Paix

Courrier de Desmond Tutu à Kofi Annan

July 28, 2000

Dear Mr. Secretary General,

RE: His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the United Nation's Millennium Peace Summit for Spiritual Leaders

I have learned with shock and deep distress that this outstanding spiritual leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, has extraordinarily not been invited to the Summit that the United Nations is convening for spiritual leaders. It is totally bizarre and quite unbelievable if it is true.

I gather this happened through caving in to pressure from the Government of China. If this is so, then it totally undermines the integrity of the United Nations and the credibility of the Summit.

I have already expressed my own sadness in being unable to have accepted your invitation to attend the Summit, but had I accepted, I would have withdrawn as a small protest against a very sad aberration. I beg you with all the eloquence and passion I can muster to reverse a disgraceful decision and issue a belated invitation to one of the foremost spiritual leaders of our day - if what I have heard is true.

If it has been a misunderstanding, I hope there would be a clarification in a statement indicating that His Holiness was in fact one of the esteemed participants in a very important gathering.

I hope to hear positively from you at your earliest convenience.

God bless you

Yours sincerely,

Desmond Tutu

Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa
Nobel Laureate
William R. Cannon Visiting Distinguished Professor of Theology