Senator, the Hon Bob Carr
Foreign Minister
R.G. Casey Building
John McEwen Crescent
Barton
ACT 0221 Australia
1st May 2013
Dear Minister
Further to my letters of 11th
and 28th March – receipt of neither of which has been acknowledged
by your office. I hope my letters have not simply disappeared and therefore do
not, officially, exist! Other than on my blog, that is!
Through an intermediary
certain unidentified Cambodian police have made it known that they wish to talk
with me about my ‘version’ of the events that led to Citipointe church removing
Rosa and Chita from the care of their parents, Chanti and Chhork in June 2008.
I do not know the names of the police who wish to speak with me or which branch
of the police force they work for. Nor have the police themselves made direct
contact with me with a formal request that I speak with them. They have done so
only through an intermediary.
It is difficult not to view
this request by anonymous police to interview me in the context of Pastor Brian
Mulheran’s thinly veiled threats to have me ‘forcibly removed’.
“We sincerely do not
want to have to go down a legal pathway
of seeing you forcibly removed…”
I do not take clear intent of Pastor Mulheran’s ‘sincere’ desire not to have me ‘forcibly removed’ too
seriously. I suspect (though I can’t be 100% sure) that it is the bluff and
bluster of a bully intent on intimidating me into stopping asking, in a public
forum, (my blog) the sorts of questions that I believe it would be appropriate
for Australian Embassy to ask of Australian NGOs. Questions like:
“Did Citipointe church
have a legal right in 2008 to remove Rosa and Chita from their parents, Chanti and Chhork?
Or
a question or two of Ruth Golder, whose ‘Love
In Action’ orphanage, “with links to the Christian
Outreach Centre in Australia, ha(s) operated illegally for years with
Australian donations.”:
“Is your orphanage
properly registered and are you operating it in accordance with Cambodian law?”
The Australian embassy does not ask such questions, however, preferring to turn a blind eye to blatant
human rights abuses – even when they are happening next door, as was the case
with the G78 community living next door in 2009. The embassy sat on its hands,
remained diplomatically silent, as red t-shirted home wreckers with sledge
hammers demolished the community – protected by AK 47 wielding soldiers with
plexi-glass shields. Australia’s lack or
moral courage in standing up to such thuggery was on open display.
If either of the two previous Ambassadors to Cambodia had bothered to
ask Ruth Golder a few basic questions about her Love in Action ‘orphanage’ a
few years ago perhaps the children in her care might have been spared the human
rights abuses that she is allegedly guilty of. The same applies for Hagar – an
AusAID recipient. Would it be too much for Australia’s ambassador to ask Hagar
if the NGO limits visits between parents and children to two hours a year? To
ask if it is true that Hagar ‘clients’ (as they are known) have no choice but
to attend Citipointe church services? Do you, as Minister, think it appropriate
that Australian tax-payers are funding the forced conversion of Cambodian
Buddhists into Christians in the Citipointe mold? Do you believe it is appropriate
that parents and child ‘clients’ have their visitation rights with each other
limited to two hours per annum? I, as a tax-payer, would love to know the
answer to this question, but it questions such as this that you, the Australian
embassy and DFAT generally steer well clear of answering.
Given that I have broken no Cambodian laws I have to presume that
Pastor Mulheran believes he has the power and influence necessary to request of
the police that I be ‘forcibly removed.’ Are the anonymous police who wish to
interview me in relation to Citipointe’s removal of Rosa and Chita acting on
the instructions of Pastor Mulheran? I think not, but 18 years of experience
has taught me that the rich and powerful can break Cambodian, Australian and
international law with impunity in that country. Having me ‘forcibly removed’
would be easy for anyone with pockets deep enough to make it happen – as many a
Cambodian journalist or politician or any other critic of the government can
attest.
On the other hand it may be that Citipointe intends to have me
‘forcibly removed’ by suing me for defamation in Cambodia for having accused
the church of having ‘stolen’ Chanti and Chhork’s daughters, Rosa and Chita, in
2008? Citipointe would not consider suing me in Australia because, in this
country, a court would make a determination based on facts, on evidence and the
church knows that I have a mass of evidence pointing to Citipointe having
‘stolen’ Rosa and Chita in much the same way in which Aboriginal children were
‘stolen’ from their materially poor parents in Australia last century – a now
thoroughly discredited form or social engineering for which we have, as a
nation, made a formal apology.
Why can’t the Australian embassy take, at the very least, a moral
stance on such behavior? Is there any moral principle that the Australian
embassy will stand up for regardless of whose feathers might be ruffled by
taking such a stance? In the event of my being ‘forcibly removed’, will the
Australian embassy insist that evidence be presented to it regarding my guilt
of whatever crimes might be conjured up by the police? Or will the Australian
embassy sit on its hands, declare that it cannot intervene in the affairs of a
sovereign nation and allow the deeply flawed Cambodian judiciary to arrive at a
‘legal’ outcome regardless of the evidence or lack thereof?
The publicity surrounding a defamation case in Australia would throw
onto Citippointe precisely the sort of spotlight that the church does not want
– preferring, as it does, to cloak its activities in secrets and lies.
Questions would be asked along the lines of those I have been asking for close
to five years and which are to be found, in their abundance, on my blog -
questions that Citipointe simply refuses to answer.
It is clear that no-one in Cambodia is going to request of Citipointe
that the church answer such questions – not the Minister of Social Affairs
(who, like yourself, does not bother to acknowledge receipt of letters), not
the Christian umbrella organization of which Citipointe is a member (Chab Dai),
not Cambodia’s prominent Human Rights organization (LICADHO) and, of course,
not the Australian Embassy – whose stance was made clear in it’s remaining
silent as its neighbours had their community destroyed. Australian NGOs can
behave pretty much as they like and our Embassy will not even ask questions
such as: “Is your NGO registered in Cambodia and are you operating outside of
Cambodian law.”
A court case in Australia would lead to questions of the kind I ask
being publicly aired; to Citipointe being forced to be transparent and
accountable for its actions; to provide the court (and hence my defense team)
with copies of the legal agreements the church claims to have with the
Cambodian Ministries of Foreign and Social Affairs; with the agreements the
church claims to have entered into with Chab Dai and LICADHO giving it the
right to deny parents and children in the care of the She Rescue Home the right
to maintain meaningful contact with each other.
Scrutiny of this kind is the last thing Citipointe wants. If the
church were to sue me in Cambodia, however, the facts, the truth, contracts and
agreements would be of secondary (or no) importance – as a wealth of
‘defamation’ cases in that country bear witness. It is possible, in Cambodia, as
you would be well aware, to be found guilty of defamation for simply
questioning the wisdom of hanging lights off Angkor Wat so that tourists can
visit the temple at night. The Cambodian judiciary’s definition of defamation
is very flexible indeed!
Whilst I am happy to provide the Cambodian police with my ‘version’
of the events leading up to and surrounding what I believe to be Citipointe’s
illegal removal of Rosa and Chita from their parents care (despite all this
information being available on my blog), I am not so keen to find myself in a
Cambodian jail on trumped up charges and being reliant on the Australian
embassy to defend my right to be provided with evidence of whatever the charges
may be against me.
I do not expect that I will receive a response to this or to my
previous two letters to you but would be delighted to be surprised.
yours
sincerely
James
Ricketson
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