"Human rights will be the light that guides our foreign affairs. Only true democracy can guarantee rights," Nelson Mandela pledged shortly before assuming the presidency of South Africa in 1994, promising the world that the basic tenets of the anti-apartheid movement would be politicaldogma for the new Rainbow Nation. Seventeen years later, South African foreign policy is much more questionable -- and Mandela's words no longer ring quite so true. The leaders of the ruling African National Council, including Mandela himself, have pursued friendships with some of the world's most notorious democracy detractors, in Africa and beyond.

Today, the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, announced that he would not attend the 80th birthday celebrations for Archbishop Desmond Tutu because the South African government had yet to grant him an entry visa. Human rights campaigners were furious and quick to blame pressure from China, which is South Africa's biggest trading partner. Tutu had invited the Dalai Lama to deliver a speech in Cape Town this week.

Above, the Dalai Lama speaks with Tutu in Brussels, Belgium in June, 2006.

Mark Renders/Getty Images

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