University of Adelaide, South Australia, Cancels Sai National Conference 2003

Barry Pittard, Australia bpittard@beachaccess.com.au

Monday, February 24, 2003

Reference:   http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/

Note:  The Advertiser (Adelaide) is one of Australia's leading newspapers.  It is published in South Australia.  To access the story online, you have go to the Url above, then page half way down on the right hand side to ARCHIVE SEARCH, and click on Newstext - (One has to be a member to access the article, therefore it has been copied below - or you can go directly through this link: Leader of cult on way to SA accused of pedophilia).

The headline is inaccurate.  It states that the leader of the Sai cult is on his way to South Australia.  We wish he was, because the Australian Federal Police would be waiting for him.

In fairness to the organisers, it should also be pointed out that the Conference website (which has suddenly disappeared!) says that the dignitaries were invited - NOT that they had accepted. 

However, anyone viewing the site could be forgiven the assumption that the Sai Organisation would not lightly advertise such an august list of invitees (the PM. the Premier, the Archbishop, the Lord Mayor) if it had little chance that they would accept. Yet the website, without updates, remained the same for many weeks! A fortnight ago, the Mayor of Adelaide, His Worship Alfred Huang, told one of our team leaders on the phone, "I have had no such invitation at all." 

Michelle Virgo, the Chief Administrator for the South Australia Premier Mike Rann told a team leader by phone, "We did receive an invitation.  We looked at it and said mm mm, no!"  

In a phone conversation to one of our co-ordinators, late evening Monday February 24, Jill Miller, the representative in this matter to the University of Adelaide's Vice Chancellor, Professor James McWha, has thanked us, and confirmed cancellation of the Conference. She said that the Vice Chancellor's special academic appointee to investigate the contentions of the Australian former devotees has excellent capabilities and "did a very thorough job."

The Archbishop of South Australia, His Emininence Philip Wilson, initiated an investigation into the status of our claims. On February 13, 2003 11:39 AM, his private secretary, Margaret Evans wrote, "The Archbishop is discussing the matter with his advisors:  the Moderator of the Curia, the Chair of the Multifaith Group etc." 

We may soon enough hear from Prime Minsiter Howard when serious questions are asked of him, such as why he will order no Travel Advisory concerning Sai Baba, when the US State Department have long ago done so (Consular Information Sheet, November 23, 2001), and when UNESCO have posted a strongly worded Media Advisory Paris, September 15, and when young Australians, supported by their families and in one case by one of the world's great historic institutions, claim that Sathya Sai Baba has sexually molested them. (Watch for some hefty actions!). Three years of considerable effort have gone to alert the Australian government of the sexual molestations and other dangers faced by Australians travelling to Puttaparthi, etc. However, some great and powerful friends have now been made, who intend to expose the Australian federal government's appalling record in this case.

Acknowledgements:   To the intense sense of purpose and growing activism of former devotees in several States of Australia.  In exposing the authoritarian cult behind the Sai National Conference 2003, Australian former devotees have made representations at very high levels to various authorities. The fine credentials in Australian community life of the former devotees were accepted by some of Australia's foremost political and religious leaders. These former devotees are the sort of people labelled as slanderers by Sai Baba, the Indian Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, and other Sai henchmen of undying shame.

Increasing numbers of Australians are leaving the Sathya Sai Organisation, driven by several factors among which are profound concern when shown evidence that powerfully attests:

- that many boys and young men, including Australians, have been sexually molested by Sathya Sai Baba.  (The Australian Federal Police and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have been closely briefed, and a whole slew of political representations is being made round Australia to Federal Parliamentarians, religious authorities, etc)

- the prime complicity of Sathya Sai Baba in the 1993 police executions of four young students in his personal chambers at Puttaparthi

- a monumental cover up by many key leaders both in the Australian and the world Sathya Sai Organisation, and their utmost failure of compassion and duty of care, including for those young males and their families who have come to officials of the Sai Organisation with their devastating stories, and been heartlessly and improperly turned away

- a vast tissue of their former teacher's lies, deceits, broken promises, errors of historical fact, failed promises, etc., .....

- that those who are attempting to bring the facts to light number many individuals who, for years, were honored in the Sai movement for their integrity, and are today so honored in their professions, trades and wider communities