“Unfortunately, this manipulation has been possible over the years because some leaders of both Jaffna College and the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India (JDCSI) have in the past milked the trustees with their connivance for private gains for them and their kith and kin, details of which never had the transparency that is intrinsic to the obligations of such bodies. It was simply a “Carry on Milking” activity resorted to with total lack of community consciousness.”(December, 06, Sydney, Australia, Sri Lanka Guardian) The idea that is being promoted with a great deal of strain by the Trustees of Jaffna College Funds (TJCF) is that it is a mission support agency and not a fiduciary trust founded to obtain, hold and manage funds in the US for the educational development of the people of the Jaffna District in Sri Lanka. In other words the TJCF chairman, the Rev Eric Gass and his colleagues want to “Missionize” the
trustees.This goes against the very founding principle and the goals of the trustees and amounts certainly to a fraud to manipulate the funds to such an extent to make its resources available to other organizations away from the needs of the people of the Jaffna District served by Jaffna College.
Unfortunately, this manipulation has been possible over the years because some leaders of both Jaffna College and the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India (JDCSI) have in the past milked the trustees with their connivance for private gains for them and their kith and kin, details of which never had the transparency that is intrinsic to the obligations of such bodies. It was simply a “Carry on Milking” activity resorted to with total lack of community consciousness.
What is feared now is that in the absence of probes into how the TJCF is being administered and the sensitiveness of the trustees to have their membership and decisions known widely in the Jaffna College and JDCSI precincts, impressions are created that they are indeed a mission support agency “founded to provide the mission support that the American Board no longer provided.”
Shocking contrast
Here is an incredibly shocking contrast in this claim that is totally unacceptable. In fact it is a blatant lie to cover up an act that the American Board, at that time, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) committed against the people of the Jaffna District on the basis that it should not support institutions of higher learning as recommended by its own executive and a man without any progressive visions, Dr Rufus Anderson. And that was why a fledgling university, the Batticotta Seminary was closed and a great boon denied to the people of Jaffna.
In order to present the TJCF as a mission support agency an effort was made to create the impression that Jaffna College was founded in 1872 and in “1877 the TJCF was founded to provide the mission support that the American Board no longer provided” according to how it was reported in the minutes of the 2003 Annual Meeting of the TJCF, October 25, held in Boston.
In reality, Jaffna College was founded by the people of the Jaffna District in 1872, the initial trust funds were raised among them and the setting up of the trustees was the result of their initiative impacted on their friends in the US who felt they needed an institution of higher education and that the mission board was wrong in closing the Batticotta Seminary.
The aforesaid minutes also falsely claimed that ever since, that is 1877, the TJCF have “been a mission support agency.” This is a deliberate and premeditated manifest of an unashamed lie resorted to by the trustees confident they have the silence of people from Jaffna College and the JDCSI to whom they have been dishing out favours sneakily, secretly and surreptitiously.
Betray their own
We have people who will for a few crumbs betray their own and still have the temerity to behave like saints in the service of God. They will not stop there. Using sabres and rapiers of evil gossips and clan networks, they will attempt to destroy the credibility of those who bring such corrupt conduct to public notice. This is helped even more by the fact that most people never probe deep or research into issues; they hardly read. They are more than happy to go by irresponsible hearsays. It is said Satan loves the steed called Buzzing Gossip! Gossip mongers are certainly satanic fellow travelers.
If the TJCF have the guts and even an iota of the sense of their obligation, let them publish the details of grants given during the last three decades to various individuals and institutions directly or via church bodies in the US, people they supported in the name of missionaries, and scholarships provided for higher education to individuals and other assistance from the trust funds.
The primary task of the trustees is that it is an agency that invests funds and its obligation is to ensure that “there is a steady and maximum income to benefit the work in Jaffna.” It was founded for no other purpose and it is from the Jaffna College Board of Directors they have to receive their directions.
A Devious Plan
Instead the TJCF is trying to integrate the Wider Church Ministries of the United Church of Christ (WCM-UCC) into it to widen its scope with a devious plan to betray the founding purpose of the trustees. The WCM-UCC is the eventual successor to the ABCFM, the organization that closed the Batticotta Seminary. The WCM-UCC also wants to stake a claim to the properties of the American Ceylon Mission that has long passed off to the JDCSI via a usurper organization.
The ultimate intention of the trustees, it is obvious, is to make the WCM-UCC as the mission support agency and the TJCF as its tool. This would mean that the WCM-UCC will have the free use of trust funds that are only for Jaffna College for the educational development of the people of the Jaffna District of Sri Lanka. It is for the Jaffna College Board of Directors to decide how best these funds are disbursed as long as they are for the benefit of the people of this district.
If the WCM-UCC should become the key player in the trust funds that are the rights of Jaffna College what prevents this organization from doing a repeat of 1855?
We have already seen how the WCM-UCC is working towards a split within the JDCSI and using some dissidents for that purpose literally laying dynamite on 190 years of mission work in north Sri Lanka. This organization is totally insensitive to the success of church union and how the Church of South India has progressed in so many fields of human activities, not just the propagation of the Christian faith alone in this region of South Asia. The Church of South India, the pioneers in church union, is a beacon of hope for the global community.
Instead, the WCM-UCC has caused great distress to the JDCSI community and supports a cheat and a fraud with a bogus doctorate to send this church into splinters. If the missionary bureaucrats in the US are keen to make their ideals meaningful to the people of Jaffna as it was during the founding of the mission from 1816 onwards, they have to enter into a meaningful dialogue with the Church of South India and the head of the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India, the Rt Rev Dr Daniel Thiagarajah and his team and not from one who tried to have him appointed as the bishop of the JDCSI with two bottles of single malt Scotch, ladies’ perfume, chocolates and US $500.00 in crispy notes.
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