Tutu and Albie Sachs receive international honours

Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu has called on China to grant Tibet its rightful autonomy after years of rule by Beijing. He urged China to be a superpower of morality. Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, handed Tutu the Light of Truth award from the International Campaign for Tibet at a ceremony in Brussels. Tutu said the people of Tibet were on the winning side and would one day be free. Independent Online reports that Tutu drew laughs for his description of the modest Tibetan leader as boyish and mischievous. He said he often had to warn the Dalai Lama to try and behave properly like a holy man.

In South Africa, Constitutional Court Judge Albie Sachs has been honoured with the Grand Cross of Liberty by the Portuguese ambassador to South Africa, Paulo Barbosa, in recognition of his fight for human rights and freedom. It is the highest order of merit awarded by the Portuguese government. Other international recipients include UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Brazil’s Lula da Silva. In his long career Sachs has been recognised as a freedom fighter, a writer, a teacher and a human rights activist. During exile in Mozambique, Sachs lost an arm and the sight in one eye in a car bomb attack by apartheid security agents.