Rev Soma Thero & Rev P. Jayasekera

(Thought you might be interested in yet another message that reached us...)

Rev Soma Thero was invited by the INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF FUNDAMENTAL STUDIES to St. Petersburg to submit a book for award of a PhD. A substantial cash award was also under consideration by the IUFS for the Thero's onward work for Buddhism and for laity.

His advisors supported the travel. However, besides being diabetic, the Thero was clearly not fit for the jetliner leap from oxygen-abundant, tropical Sri Lanka to the rarefied air of leafless, post-autumn St. Petersburg where little English - and no Sinhala - is spoken.

On December 28th the Sunday Leader front-paged a report in Colombo that the Thero developed pains in the chest during his jet flight and required hospitalisation upon arrival on October 11. A group of Buddhists collected above $5,000 when cash was solicited by the IUFS' head and was handed over to the IUFS by Rupasiri Perera, a Moscow-based Buddhist organiser and a one-time Taiwanese Mahayana group adept.

According to the newspaper Dr R. A. Karunanayake, a Sri Lanka Embassy official panel doctor based in Moscow, examined the patient record and his conclusions on cardiac insufficiency are set out in the Sunday Leader article. What is IUFS?

The main website is down (IUFS is being investigated by the police after recent events attracted Russian police attention) but the website of "American Coastline University," an affiliate in Moscow, has not been powered down still (a UK student visa shingle, "Boston University in London," is also visible there.)

Information is available, however, at Google Groups.
Sample:
<http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8\
&selm=Dennis.Ruhl.odiyw%40email.onlinecollege.info>
From: Dennis Ruhl
(Dennis.Ruhl.odiyw@email.onlinecollege.info)
Subject: Re: IUFS News update
Newsgroups: alt.education.distance
Date: 2003-06-01 19:08:04 PST

IUFS does have recognition beyond the unrecognized American
accreditation claimed.
It made the A list of The Australian review of schools -
degree mill, as did their fine American affiliate American
Coastline University.

<http://tinyurl.com/d7ui>

I especially like the challenging program of their theology
program run by Rev. Chief Dr. Swift Eagle. "Complete your BA
or MA with life experience."

Sell your stuff somewhere else.
-----------------------------------------------------------
<http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/sectionindex2/0,5746,de\
greemills%5e%5eTEXT,00.html>

Universities to watch out for: The A-Z lists
An extensive guide to active, emerging and recent degree
mills and officially unaccredited universities, compiled
from original research by the Higher Education Supplement.
Degree Mills

These "universities'' offer to "confer'' degrees based on
life experience, with prices ranging from $300 to about
$10,000.
[...]
International University of Fundamental Studies
[...]

http://www.spur.asn.au/Ven_Soma_Funeral_Tear_Gas_Attack.htm
From Kosala Jayasinghe:
One single dayaka (Donor) in SL has remitted Rs. 2 M (USD 20,000) to Shanti Jayasekara. for the operation and as we know the Moscow community handed over another USD 5300 to him. There is a false rumor that Dr. Shanti Jayasekara has returned this money. He stated that 2 operations were conducted on Ven. Soma. The autopsy revealed that no surgery was conducted. Only an attempt was made to place a stentor. This confirms that in spite of receiving all the money demanded by Shanti Jayasekara no proper medical attention was given to Ven Soma. It must be stated that Ven. Soma did pass away from a massive heart attack either natural or artificial.

..I am pleading with moderate Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, Christian and Muslim leaders in the country. Please get together and force the government to use the fullest force of law to punish those few who wanted to create trouble no matter what religion they belong and stop this problem once for all. Otherwise sure these people will go and attack a Buddhist temple and blame it on Catholics or will attack a Church and blame it on Buddhists.
[...]

From: Shanti P.Jayasekara (icsru@comset.net)
Subject: EXPORT FROM RUSSIA
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format
Newsgroups: alt.business.import-export.services
Date: 1998/05/04
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alt.business.import-export - 26 May 1998 by Shanti P.Jayasekara - View Thread (1 article)
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alt.business.import-export - 10 May 1998 by Shanti P.Jayasekara - View Thread (8 articles)
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alt.business - 4 May 1998 by Shanti P.Jayasekara - View Thread (5 articles)
[...]

-----------------------Endnote----------------------------
IUFS is operated by Rev Prof Shanti P. Jayasekera DD, PhD,
EdD, JD, DSc.

An ordinary person would need several lifetimes to obtain the above, varied religious and academic recognition. When starting a 'rocket science' diploma shop in Sri Lanka's own IMF-compliant Open Economy in Main Street, Battaramulla, the individual was simply known as Pushpakumara. While studying in St. Petersburg he chanced to marry a Russian Jewess and he returned to that city. It was in the aftermath of Harvardian Jeffrey Sachs' shock-therapy, when of the top seven new millionaires who appeared in Russia - six were discovered to be Jews though the latter ethnic group accounts statistically for less than 1% of the population (the fortunes of the new millionaires have come in for investigation under the Putin administration.)

In St. Petersburg Pushpakumara tried his hand at opening a 'international' computer school but by 1998 moved towards setting up a fake degree 'university.' For this he chose 'fundamentalism' copied in Sri Lanka from the Institute of Fundamental Studies, Hantane, Kandy, to coin the name 'International University of Fundamental Studies.'

It is difficult to understand how Rev Soma Thero would have been entrusted to such a hoaxter because Sisira Jayasekera (in the Jana Vijaya associated with the Thero,) would have known that his own brother Pushpakumara's house of wax was hardly a destination for a religious man.

Pushpakumara has been bared by the glare of events for investigation by the Russian police who customarily cooperate with requests for extradition of foreign miscreants. Pushpakumara could thus be investigated in court in Sri Lanka.