« University of Oregon Diwali celebrations featured in Sports Illustrated online :+: Pakistani man helps abused U.S. based Indian woman (Update) »

Politics

Donated Money to a Worthy Cause Lately?

By: A Virile Nagalingam :+: Under: Politics
On: ⋅ November 20, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
Discuss in our off-topic forums

Looks like you are new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

This is a bit stale, as the news cycle goes, but it does deserve a post. The TRO, or Tamil Rehabilitation Organization was an organization originally formed to aid Lankan Tamil refugees to South India. It has since, apparently, become refocused (as it’s head office is in Kilinochchi) and it’s profile has certainly been augmented by the recent tsunami. During that time, a great fund-raising effort occurred, with the professional Lankan Tamils abroad being targeted for donations. It has now been declared a terrorist-financing organization by the US Treasury department and was added to the official SDN OFAC list. This means that, from a compliance standpoint, no financial institution may accept deposits of any kind from the TRO nor can they continue to manage any funds/securities linked to the TRO (including managers/directors etc).

The possible personal connections within the organization and favorable sentiments towards the LTTE aside (the impressions of which are no doubt helped by it’s HQ being in Tiger-controlled territory), anyone could have advised potential donors that transparency and good reporting should be characteristics and practices of any charity to which you wish to donate. I can’t seem to find the exact press release, but I do remember the British Charity Commission delisting the TRO in the UK as a charitable organization for it’s inability to sufficiently account for donated funds. This might be the most appropriate post script–the TRO ‘categorically’ denying any misappropriation of funds for a particular project.

I know this is a sensitive topic and you may not wish to divulge this sort of information, given that an organization which has been officially ko’d by the US government and has had their assets frozen may have your information, but can anyone describe their experience with the TRO (donating/working with)?

Just to get this out of the way, I am well aware of the fact that to do charitable work inside LTTE-controlled areas, one must at some level deal with actual (gasp!) Tigers. I’m just not sure what level of cooperation is involved and whether being able to do good work necessitates the level of cooperation with the Tigers that might compromise one’s integrity as an NGO accepting funds from folks who obviously don’t want to see humanitarian aid turned into to war material for the Tigers.

« University of Oregon Diwali celebrations featured in Sports Illustrated online :+: Pakistani man helps abused U.S. based Indian woman (Update) »
Discuss in our off-topic forums