James Ricketson
316 Whale Beach Road
Palm Beach 2108
0400959229
Leigh Ramsay
322 Wecker Road
Carindale
QLD 4152
5th April 2013
Dear Leigh
One of my sources within
Citipointe tells me that the church will, again, threaten to sue me. Sigh! If the rumour is true, an 18 page
document will arrive from your lawyers filled with demands similar to those
made in previous similar legal documents. As before, I will not meet any of
Citipointe’s demands because I know that all I have written in my blog is true
and that I can back it all up with audio-visual evidence.
Perhaps this time Citipointe is
not bluffing. I hope this to be the case because it is time that the questions
I have been asking for close to five years be asked in a forum where the
combination of silence and lies employed by Citipointe will not suffice. In
point form these questions will include:
(1) Why is the 31st.
July ‘contract’ between Chanti and Vanna and Citipointe not countersigned by
anyone from either Citipointe church and the She Rescue Home?
(2) Why does the
‘contract’ contain no terms and conditions?
(3) Does the 31st
July 2008 ‘contract’ that Chanti and her mother Vanna applied their thumb
prints to have any legal status at all?
If the answer to (3) is ‘no’, on
what legal basis, on 31st July 2008, was Citipointe holding Rosa and
Chita?
(4) Between 31st
July and 11th August 2008, did Citipointe enter into an agreement
with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the church’s custody of Rosa and
Chita?
(5) If such a contract
was entered into, what was the basis of it? That Rosa and Chita were the
daughters of poor parents who needed interim help or that they were victims of
some form of abuse or of Human Trafficking?
(6) If Citipointe entered
into an agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 31st
July and 11th August 2008 on the basis that Rosa and Chita were
victims of something, what evidence had emerged, during the previous 11 days,
to change their status from the children of a poor family into victims that
required close to total removal from their family?
(7) If Citipointe came into
possession of information that warranted total removal of Rosa and Chita from
their parents care between 31st July and 11th August 2011,
was this information at any point passed on to Chanti, to Chhork (the father)
or to Chanti’s commune Chief?
(8) Is Citipointe sure
that the information that altered Rosa and Chita’s status from the children of
poor parents (31st July 2008) to the victims of Human Trafficking (11th
August 2008) is true and accurate? This goes to the question of accountability
and the right of the parents, Chanti and Chhork, to be appraised of the charges
(implicit or explicit) that have been laid against them.
(9) Were Chanti and
Chhork ever told, between 31st July and 11th August 2008
why Rosa and Chita had been removed from the family home until they reached 18
years of age?
(10) On 11th
August 2008, when Rebecca Brewer told both Chanti and myself that Rosa and
Chita would stay with Citipointe until they were 18, was this based on a
legally binding agreement that Citipointe had entered into with the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs? (Citipointe has long ago acknowledged that at this time and
for a year hence, no agreement had been entered into between Citipointe and the
Ministry of Social Affairs.)
(11) Were Chanti and Chhork
ever provided with a copy of the legal document/contract/agreement entered into
by Citipointe and Foreign Affairs that
resulted in their daughters being removed from their care?
(12) Were Chanti and Chhol
invited to comment at all, make observations about, the agreement that
Citipointe had entered into with Foreign Affairs?
(13) If, between 31st July and 11th August 2008,
Citipointe had NOT entered into a legally binding agreement with the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, on what legal basis was the church holding Rosa and Chita
against the express wishes of their parents in August 2008?
(14) When, in Nov 2008,
Chanti and Chhork (with me filming the telephone conversation) asked Citipointe
for permission to take Rosa and Chita to Srey Veng to visit both their extended families and
Citipointe refused, on what legal basis was this refusal made?
I could go on with pages of such
legal questions but I am sure you get the idea. For a court to make a
determination as to whether or not I have defamed Citipointe, each of these
questions would be addressed in some detail and Citipointe would not have the
option of simply refusing to answer them as it has this past close to five
years. Unless, of course, Citipointe chooses to sue me in a Cambodian court in
which the definition of ‘defamation’ is very flexible indeed!
Then there are the moral
questions:
(15) Why, in close to five
years, has Citipointe made no contribution at all to the well-being of Chanti’s
family as promised?
(16) Why, in close to five
years, has Citipointe never once put in place or attempted to initiate a re-integration
program for Rosa, Chita, Chanti and Chhork?
(17) Why, in close to five
years, has Citipointe never once allowed Rosa and Chita to take part in any
family, religious or cultural events at all?
(18) Why has Citipointe
attempted (with mixed results) to indoctrinate Rosa and Chita (whose family is
Buddhist) into Citipointe’s particular version of the Christian faith? (This
indoctrination comes through very clearly in footage shot with Rosa and Chita
this past close to five years.)
(19) What is the nature of
the relationship between Citipointe and Hagar such that Hagar ‘clients;’ have
no option but to attend Citipointe church services?
(20) Is it appropriate to
pay Chanti 25 cents to make a bracelet that Citipointe sells for $3 –
especially in light of the fact that Citipointe makes no contribution at all to
the welfare of Chanti’s family?
(21) Is it appropriate
that a senior Pastor of Citipointe church, a Christian (!) should be issuing barely veiled threats to a
filmmaker to have him ‘forcibly removed’, arrested, jailed and banned from
visiting Cambodia again for asking questions such as the ones I am asking here?
Again, I could go on for pages
but would only be repeating what I have already written in my blog. Right now
my blog receives around 100 page hits a day. Not a lot. The page hit rate will
increase dramatically, however, if Citipointe makes good its threat to sue me
or to have me ‘forcibly removed’). And, of course, Citipointe will be providing
me with tens of thousands of dollars free publicity for CHANTI’S WORLD if the
church decides to actually sue me for defamation as opposed to threatening to
sue me for defamation.
Another question that would
probably be asked by many readers of my
blog (if not by the court) would be: “Why, given that Chhork now has a tuk tuk
and the family a home in their village in Prey Veng, is Citipointe putting so
much effort into PREVENTING reintegration? Why doesn’t the church simply say,
“Chanti, it is great that with a bit of help from James you have managed to
achieve something approaching financial security. We would love to help you and
your family over the next 8 years (until Chita is 18) and this is what we would
like to offer you…”
That the church does not make
such an overture speaks volumes of Citipointe’s real agenda in Cambodia –
unless, of course, Citipointe has some evidence that it chooses to share with
no-one (and particularly not Chanti and Chhork) suggestive that Rosa and Chita
would be ‘at risk’ if they were to be living with their family in Prey Veng.
But if Rosa and Chita would be ‘at risk’ why are Citipointe, Chab Dai, LICADHO
and the Ministryof Social Affairs not concerned about the ‘risk’ confronting
Srey Ka – now roughloy the same age as Rosa and Chita were when Citipointe
magically transformed them from victims of extreme poverty to victims of Human
Trafficking. The questions multiply but all of those who should be insisting on
answers remain mute and, in their muteness, become accessories to Citipointe’s
removal of Rosa and Chita from their family’s care in a manner in which, I
allege, contravenes both Cambodian and Ausatralian law. If my allegation is
incorrect Citipointe has only to release the relevant legal documents to Chanti
and Chhork so that they at least, are aware of why it is that for the next 8
years, their access to their daughters will be limited to between two and four
hours per month.
best wishes
James Ricketson
No comments:
Post a Comment