Outing A Counterfeit Guerrilla
Then, a lecturer at Monash College invited me to the World Matters 2011 (an annual literary festival) held at Montsalvat in Eltham (outskirts of Melbourne) on 14, 15 and 16 October 2011.[ii] On the last day of this literary festival, Niromi de Soyza was to participate as a panelist in the ‘Missing Peace’ spotlight on Sri Lanka chaired by David Feith (lecturer at Monash College). I did attend the panel discussion on Sri Lanka and saw the face of the author of Tamil Tigress. Beyond her face, a lot of what she said and the customary tears she shed (real or contrived) raised more questions than the answers I was looking for. Her tears have become customary because she had done it with Nikki Barrowclough (2011) earlier. What astounded me most was what she claimed her “alma mater” is. Then onwards my intense curiosity turned into profound suspicion.
Niromi announced in Melbourne that part of the proceeds of the sale of her “personal story” will be donated to a charity in the name of her “alma mater” and she gave an email address with the username sjc87. When I searched the web for sjc87 I came across the following website http://www.sjc87scholarship.org/. SJC is the acronym of St. John’s College (Jaffna) which is a boys-only school and therefore cannot be an alma mater of Niromi de Soyza, who is a woman.
In the list of “Working Committee” members of the ‘St. John’s College Batch of 1987 Trust’ or the ‘SJC 87 Initiative: Every Child deserves an Education’, the two names given in Sri Lanka have only mobile phone numbers, which is dubious to say the least. In fact, all the contact details of members of the working committee mentioned on the website are mobile phone numbers and email addresses only, which arouse suspicion; there are no postal addresses (even P.O. Box addresses) or land phone lines in any country of their presence. The working committee members are spread across the world: 3 in Australia, 1 in Canada, 1 in New Zealand, 2 each in Sri Lanka, UK and USA.[iii] One past pupil of St. John’s College Jaffna living in Australia (who is active in the old boys’ association based in Australia) could not identify any of the three working committee members of SJC 87 Initiative living in Australia and New Zealand.
However, the SJC Initiative website does mention a Registration number INC9892583 and Charity fund raising approval number CFN/21586.[iv] But, it is highly unlikely that this purported charity is providing scholarships to children of the schools in Kilinochchi district mentioned on the website.[v] Further, the pictures of classrooms in the beneficiary schools on the website could not have been taken in the past two years.
Moreover, the presenter in the promotional video of the SJC 87 Initiative outlining its activities and soliciting donations is a native Australian woman. This indicates that the primary target of this promotional video is the native Australian general public and not the Sri Lankan diaspora in Australia (who are by this time well versed with such scams by the LTTE lobbies). Ironically, while the entire working committee members are men of Sri Lankan Tamil origin, the presenter is an Australian woman.
It is typical of the overseas domiciled LTTE to use host country personnel to advance their cause in whatever form it may take. Prominent members of the LTTE in many countries were/are married to host country women/men; for example, the wife of Anton Balasingham(the former “ideologue”, “theoretician” or simply “political adviser” of the LTTE) is Adele Balasingham originally from Victoria (Australia) and was living in the UK until her husband’s death in December 2006, her current whereabouts are unknown; the wife of Chandru Pararajasingham [the head of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) office in Colombo during the ceasefire time (2002-2005) - TRO was the humanitarian arm of the LTTE] is an Australian named Margaret Pararajasingham. There are four doctors in the working committee of the SJC 87 Initiative; one each in Australia and New Zealand and two in America. I am not sure whether these are medical practitioners or doctorates or just quacks like Anton Balasingham.
The SJC 87 Initiative is probably a scam. The website of SJC 87 Initiative seems to have come online in August 2011 immediately after the release of Niromi de Soyza’s autobiographical book in July 2011. There may be an organic link between Niromi’s book and the SJC 87 Initiative. This book could have been purposefully written for fundraising to the SJC 87 Initiative AND more. Niromi asserted in Melbourne that she is not in touch with either the Tamil diaspora or the Sinhala diaspora in Australia. If that was the case, how could she be funding the SJC Initiative from the sales of her book? Certainly she is not telling the truth.
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