(TibetanReview.net, Oct17’26) – Following a second nighttime arson attack, which practically destroyed the building housing the office and residence of the Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama located in South Africa’s capital Pretoria on Oct 14, the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, like many others, has called for a thorough probe of this and the previous, Jul 6, 2026, incident. At least one Tibet group has attributed the attacks to China’s transnational repression, given the degree of Beijing’s routine expressions of hostility towards the Dalai Lama and what it derisively calls the “Dalai Lama clique”.
This attack is a direct assault on the fundamental freedoms provided to the Office of Tibet and its staff under South Africa’s own Constitution, which protects the rights of all people in South Africa, including non-nationals, said Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (savetibet.org) Oct 16.
“ICT supports the public call made by the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation that the South African Police Service should launch an immediate, comprehensive, and transparent investigation into both this and the prior incident to bring the perpetrators to justice, and determine whether there was any involvement from a third country,” said the Tibet advocacy group.
Representative Dhundup Gyalpo, who narrowly escaped with his life from the Oct 14 petrol-bomb attack, was in no doubt that “larger political forces” were behind the attack, but did not elaborate.
New York-headquartered Tibet group Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) feels sure who was behind the nighttime petrol-bomb assault. The attacks on the Dalai Lama’s office are part of a “global rise in transnational repression” by the Chinese Communist Party against the Tibetan people, rfa.org Oct 16 cited SFT as saying in a statement.
The group has called on the South African law enforcement and government authorities to conduct an immediate, thorough, and independent investigation of the incident.
“Law enforcement must not dismiss these attacks as ordinary local crime, but must explicitly examine political motives and potential foreign state involvement.
South Africa’s foreign ministry had earlier declined to comment on the incident, saying it was a policing matter, in response to a media query.
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The Office of Tibet was opened in 1997 under the approval of the then South African President Nelson Mandela, following a request from the Dalai Lama in 1996, noted the Tibet Support group Free Tibet (freetibet.org) Oct 16. Its primary objective is to promote an understanding between Tibetans and the peoples of South Africa through cultural, educational and religious exchanges.
The group noted that Beijing had openly pressured Pretoria over Tibetan representation, with the government acquiescing to demands on several occasions.
South Africa switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in Jan 1998. In a 2024 parliamentary reply, the foreign ministry said that the agreement committed it to recognising the People’s Republic as the sole legal government of China, “including the regions of Tibet, Hong Kong and Macau”, the group said.
China is now South Africa’s largest trading partner, while the governing African National Congress (ANC) – the former national liberation movement – having sent cadres to Chinese Communist Party training academies.
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Free Tibet noted that in 2009 the government refused the Dalai Lama a visa for a peace conference hosted by Mandela, Tutu and de Klerk. A Chinese embassy official confirmed to the South African Press Association that Beijing had warned that admitting him would harm bilateral relations. He was again kept out in 2011, for Tutu’s 80th birthday, and in 2014, when the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Cape Town collapsed after laureates withdrew in protest.
In 2018, the then Tibetan Sikyong Lobsang Sangay was able to deliver a lecture despite a formal protest from the Chinese embassy. The Inkatha Freedom Party – historically the Tibetan cause’s main political ally in South Africa – condemned the Chinese embassy’s conduct.
While it is not clear, yet who carried out the attacks on the Dalai Lama’s office in Pretoria, the incidents show the challenging – and clearly, now dangerous – circumstances for Tibetan representatives in South Africa in a global environment of heightened transnational repression by China, said Free Tibet.