Published by: World Tibet Network News, Tuesday, August 20, 1996

Source: The Star

Date: August 19, 1996

By Bobby Brown

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Tibetan Dalai Lama, arrived to a quiet but enthusiastic welcome from a small crowd at Johannesburg international airport yesterday afternoon.

The Buddhist spiritual leader turned 61 last month. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and is visiting South Africa for a series of public talks on behalf of the World Conference on Religion and Peace.

He will speak in Durban tomorrow, in Cape Town on Wednesday and in Pretoria on Friday before addressing followers at the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg on Saturday.

In Cape Town he will speak at the annual Desmond Tutu Peace Lecture.

"I am very pleased to be in South Africa in order to learn from your country's peaceful transition," he said after his arrival from Bombay, India.

The Dalai Lama, who said he hoped to meet President Mandela, is exiled in Dharamsal in India, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile. His government has been in exile since China occupied Tibet in 1959.