Global Policy Forum

By Laurie Goodstein

More than 1,000 eminent religious leaders from around the world are expected to gather for a conference at the United Nations this month, but conspicuously absent will be the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, who has been excluded to avoid offending China.

The Dalai Lama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, was omitted from the initial invitation list for the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders, to be held in New York from Aug. 28 to 31.

The conference, financed largely by Ted Turner and several foundations, is the start of an initiative designed to link religious leaders with UN efforts to help prevent, settle or heal conflicts around the world.

Some religious leaders are now saying that the exclusion of the Dalai Lama illustrates the need for such a conference, as well as its pitfalls.

''This compromises the integrity of the United Nations and the credibility of the summit,'' said Desmond Tutu, the retired archbishop of Cape Town. ''Apart from anything else, the Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of a major religion, and it just doesn't make sense that he has not been invited.''

Bawa Jain, secretary-general of the conference, said that China, which is one of five permanent members of the Security Council, had made it clear from the start that it would not approve of inviting the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 with thousands of his followers after the Chinese invaded and has lived in exile in India ever since.

''It's been very clear with the Chinese from Day 1,'' Mr. Jain said, ''and it's been very clear with the office of the secretary-general that within the political framework of the United Nations there are certain constraints, and if you decide to have this event with the UN, then there are political constraints. Not that I agree with it, but I abide by it.''

At the United Nations, Manoel de Almeida e Silva, deputy spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said, ''There are a number of countries here that feel that certain issues are more controversial, have political implications for them, and which they are very sensitive about, and that certainly is the case with Tibet for China.''

Mr. Jain said that he met with the Dalai Lama last November in Israel to discuss the conference. Mr. Jain said the dilemma was painful because he has known the Dalai Lama since he was a boy in India and studied with a Jain monk who was close to the Dalai Lama.

Mr. Jain said the Dalai Lama had given the conference his blessings and called it a unique opportunity that should proceed despite his absence. But last month, news of the Dalai Lama's exclusion began to spread through the international network of Tibet supporters, and letters of protest arrived at the organizers' offices in New York.

So late last month, five weeks before the conference, Mr. Jain belatedly invited the Dalai Lama to deliver the keynote address at the closing session, to be held not at the United Nations but at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York.

But on Wednesday, organizers received a letter from the Dalai Lama's secretary in Dharmsala, India, declining that offer but promising to support the conference by sending a ''high-level Tibetan delegation'' to represent him.

Nawang Rabgyal, spokesman for the Dalai Lama in New York, said, ''His holiness has never been comfortable accepting invitations that are made out of compulsion rather than willingly, and he has always avoided embarrassing or causing inconveniences to anyone, whether they are individuals or governments. And, moreover, the invitation has come far too late. His holiness's program has been finalized many months in advance.''

Among those expected to attend are Cardinal Francis Arinze, representing the Vatican; the Reverend Konrad Raiser, secretary-general of the World Council of Churches; Israel's Ashkenazic chief rabbi, Yisrael Meir Lau; Abdullah Salaih Obaid, secretary-general of the Muslim World League; and spiritual leaders representing Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Jain, Sikh, Native American and Zoroastrian faiths, among others.