Tutu sees 2010 World Cup as 10th anniversary gift

Former Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, is in Trinidad to ask for a birthday gift for South Africa as it celebrates ten years of democracy. He disclosed this yesterday evening at Piarco Airport at a brief news conference minutes after landing, ahead of former South African president Nelson Mandela, who was due to arrive later last night. Tutu explained the reason for his visit with Mandela was to lobby FIFA on South Africa’s bid to host the football World Cup in 2010.

Tutu said, “We are celebrating in South Africa our tenth anniversary and we want to say thank you to the people of Trinidad for having supported us in our struggle against apartheid. And we hope that the FIFA guy (presumably CONCACAF president, Jack Warner) will be nice and say ‘Ah, they are celebrating their tenth birthday, let’s give them a birthday present.’” The 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner explained why South Africa’s bid was so important to it. He recalled how sport had helped heal that country a year after the end of apartheid in 1994. “It’s quite crucial. We hosted the World Rugby Cup in 1995 and we won. That was a very, very significant victory for us, because it did more than speeches by politicians or sermons by archbishops to draw people together who, for so long, have been separated.”

On the lighter side, he said he was a football fan who had played the game once or twice. “Sometimes I kicked where the ball was,” he jested in self-effacement. Overall, Tutu was pleasant yet businesslike. He sported a casual sports jersey whose white matched his hair. He seemed in robust health, having held  up well on his flight. Tutu is known for openly displaying his emotions such as weeping while chairing a sitting of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He greeted three secondary school boys by clapping his two hands to each of theirs in a “high five” greeting.

In the long wait on Tutu, media personnel fumed in frustration about the shoddy organisation of the media reception. Following official directives, reporters had to wait two hours — from 3.30 pm to 5.30 pm — for just three or four minutes to meet Tutu. His plane touched down at about 5.10 pm. He was escorted to a VIP area to meet Minister of Community Development Joan Yuille-Williams and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Knowlson Gift; Anglican Church officials including former Archbishops Clive Abdullah and Rawle Douglin; CONCACAF officials headed by FIFA vice-president Jack Warner; and UNC activists like Ken Emrith and Lester Ford.

But the media was directed to the tarmac, unaware that Tutu was upstairs in the VIP area. Despite undergoing stringent security measures, media personnel felt they had been misdirected to the “ramp” instead of the VIP area where they could have witnessed Tutu greeting local dignitaries. The organisers committed a terrible breach of protocol which insulted both countries. In one corner of a scruffy red carpet laid out for Tutu and Mandela, lay the national flags of Trinidad and Tobago and South Africa. But after greeting officials and media personnel, there were no more greetings to anyone, as Tutu was whisked away to President’s House in a black BMW in a nine-car convoy, led by police motorcycle outriders. It was all a far cry from the initial plans for throngs of people to greet the motorcade.