Directors of the Global Development Group Board
Unit 6, 734 Underwood Road
Rochedale, QLD 4123
26th Feb 2014
Dear David James Pearson, Geoffrey Winston Armstrong
Ofelia (fe) Luscombe, Alan Benson, David Robertson
Imagine this. You are an NGO in Cambodia. You wish to reintegrate two girls back into their impoverished family in Prey Veng. Your every effort ends in failure, however, because there is this very annoying chap from Australia who keeps thwarting your plans. After around five years of this, unable to stand it any more, you decide to lodge a complaint with the relevant Cambodian authorities. Who do you turn to? The answer is obvious! The Trafficking police. They’ll be able to sort this annoying Australian out!
Do you, dear board members, seriously believe that Citipointe church would turn to the Trafficking Police to help them with a re-integration problem? And do you think that the Trafficking Police, would take on the job? Almost anything is possible in Cambodia but the Trafficking Police investigating a child re-integration problem is stretching credibility somewhat! This story does not pass the laugh test and yet Geoff Armstrong seems to have swallowed Citipointe’s unlikely tale whole!
But let’s just presume for a moment that the Trafficking Police, with nothing better to do with their time, decide to take on this thorny re-integration problem and let’s just pretend that there isn’t a wealth of correspondence that exposes Citipointe church’s proposition as nonsense. Why don’t each of you board members visit my Citipointe blog and, quite at random, choose three different blog entries to read. It is virtually guaranteed that in each of the three you will find me advocating strenuously for the reintegration of Rosa and Chita back into their family. Or, if you want to be more thorough, and you should be given what is at stake here, see if you can find one sentence in any of my 160 blog entries in which there is evidence that I have thwarted the reintegration of Rosa and Chit back into their family?
That Geoff Armstrong can place such nonsense on record (such easily demonstrable nonsense!) is a little mind boggling. It has made not just me, but a few others, smile and shake our heads in disbelief so we are grateful for the comic relief!
Following on from my letters of 8th, Feb, 12th Feb, 13th Feb and 18th Feb. now, and in acknowledgement of Geoff Armstrong’s letter to me of 25th Feb. And, of course, taking into account my response to Geoff’s letter – also dated 25th Feb., lets get serious now.
I have attached two documents. One is a photocopy on the contract that Citipointe asked Chanti and her mother to place their thumb prints on on 31st. July 2008. The other is the translation I had made of this ‘contract’ in November 2008 when I first it and when it was apparent that Citipointe had no intention of returning Chanti and Chhork’s daughters to them until they were 18. I strongly suggest that the GDG have this July 2008 Khmer ‘contract’ translated and that you get a legal opinion as to its validity as a contract.
It was on the basis of this 31st July 2008 document that Citipointe claimed, both in writing to me and in recorded telephone conversations with me, that the church had a legal right to hold Rosa and Chita until they were 18 years old. On the basis of the 31st July 2008 ‘contract’ Citipointe had no such right – as I am sure your lawyers will tell you.
When it became apparent that no-one acknowledged the validity of this ‘contract’ (not even the Trafficking Police investigating the serious re-integration problem Citipointe had brought to their attention!) the church announced that the ‘SHE Rescue Home’ had entered into another contract with the Ministry of Social Affairs. Could Chanti and Chhork have a copy of it? No! Could I, as their legally appointed advocate, have a copy. No! Were Chanti and Chhork allowed to be told, by either the Ministry of Social Affairs or Citipointe why their daughters could not be returned to them? No. Do you, members of the Global Development board, believe that Citipointe and the Ministry of Social Affairs have a right to withhold this information from parents? This is not a rhetorical question.
The Global Development Group does have copies of the contracts and/or agreements that Chanti and Chhork have been denied. Do you believe, dear members of the board, that this is fair? (This is not a rhetorical question). Do you believe that the parents of children removed by an NGO on the basis of a fraudulent ‘contract’ (31st July 2008) have a right to be provided with what the NGO purports, some years down the track, to be a genuine contract? Again, this is not a rhetorical question. Answer these questions with spin if you so choose, or do not answer them at all. The questions are on the record now and your failure to answer them, should this be the case, will be on record also.
I am sure that you need no reminding from me that as directors of the Global Development Group you have certain responsibilities. Nonetheless, I will remind you anyway:
“Directors are unable to hide behind ignorance of the company’s affairs, where that ignorance is of their own making. This means that directors should question information that is put before them to ensure that it is truly representative of the company’s position and not just accept what may be put to them by employees of the company.”
I am less interested here in your legal responsibilities than in your moral responsibilities.
I trust, before you decide to ignore the many questions I have asked in my letters, or get Geoff Armstrong to write another curt, dismissive and spin-laden letter, that you consider the possible ramifications for the reputation of the Global Development Group if it becomes public knowledge that the GDG refused to even look at evidence that was offered to it relating to Citipointe church’s serious breaches of the ACFID Code of Conduct.
If you have any doubts about my resolve, skim through the 160 entries on my Citipointe blog and form your own judgment as to whether or not I am the kind of person who can or will be put off by bluff and bluster of the kind that Geoff engaged in in his letter of 25th Feb.
If you wish to stand by Citipointe church this is, I suppose, admirable on one level. For your own sakes, for the sake of the Global Development Group, however, please make sure that you have all the relevant facts at your disposal before you throw your hats irrevocably into the ring with Citipointe. Nothing in Cambodia is ever quite as it seems to be!
Chanti, Chhork and myself are in Phnom Penh and available to meet with any one of the Global Development Group’s three Cambodian representatives today, tomorrow or any day in the near future.
best wishes
James Ricketson
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