Ms
Sam Mostyn
President
Australian Council for
International Development
12 Napier Close, Deakin ACT 2600
6th May 2014
Dear Ms Mostyn
Late
yesterday afternoon I received, by email, a copy of the “ACFID Code of Conduct Inquiry into complaint made about Global
Development Group (ACFID Reference C314), Report
to the Parties on Facts.”
I wish to place the
following on record:
(1) I have not made a formal
complaint to ACFID regarding either Citipointe church or the Global Development
Group.
(2) No attempt has been made
by the Code of Conduct Committee Enquiry to speak with the parents of the girls
whose removal from their family in 2008 has given rise to ACFID’S Inquiry –
Chanti and Chhork – or to address the complaint they lodged with the committee
10 days ago.
(3) No reference is made in
this “Report to the parties on Facts” to the most important fact of all –
namely the MOUs that Citipointe and the Global Development Group claim gave the
church the right to remove Rosa and Chita from their family in 2008 – an
omission that speaks volumes of ACFID’S agenda in conducting this ‘investigation’.
Expanding on these points:
(1) As the well-documented record
will show, I have repeatedly, in my letters to you and to Dr Sue-Anne Wallace
and the ACFID Code of Conduct Committee, made it clear that I do not wish to
participate in any enquiry in which the 2008 and 2009 MOUs are not entered as
evidence pertaining to the legality of Citipointe’s removal of Rosa and Chita. Your
own persistent refusal to call upon Citipointe and GDG to produce the MOUs, Dr
Sue-Anne Wallace’s and the Code of Conduct’s refusal to take the MOUs into
account, renders the whole idea of an investigation a farce. Either contracts
exist between Citipointe and the relevant Cambodian ministries giving the
church the right of removal or they do not. You know that the MOUs did not give
Citipointe the rights the church has exercised, and so does Dr Sue-Anne Wallace
and her Code of Conduct committee. Asking for copies of the MOUs would make it
difficult (nay, impossible) to arrive at the conclusion that the committee has
decided in advance to arrive at – namely
that there has been no breach of the ACFID Code of Conduct by either Citipointe
or GDG. The refusal, at every level of ACFID, to ask for copies of the MOUs,
renders you all complicit in the ongoing detention of Rosa and Chita contrary
to the express wishes of their parents and in contravention of Cambodian law.
I acknowledge that ACFID has
the right (indeed, the moral obligation) to initiate its own investigation into
the illegal removal of girls from their families, as seems to be the case here.
However, to initiate an investigation without calling the MOUs into evidence
raises serious questions about the competence, impartiality and the integrity
of ACFID’s investigative processes. How can any investigation into the legality
of the church’s actions be made without reference to the MOUs? Lest there be
any misunderstanding, I did not call for this Inquiry to occur and have played
no role in it other than providing the committee with facts that it has chosen
to ignore.
(2) In relation to Chanti
and Chhork’s complaint it is worth quoting my letter of 24th April
to Dr Sue-Anne Wallace and the Code of Conduct committee, in full:
Dear Dr Sue-Anne Wallace
Greg Brown
John Gilmore
Bandula
Gonsalkorale
Harwood
Lockton
Dr Petrus
Usmanij
Fadlullah
Wilmot
Dr Simon Smith
Michelle
Pearce
Julie Mundy
Last night I received an email from a friend of
Chanti’s in Phnom Penh. Attached was a document which, Chanti told me in a
phone conversation this mornng, is her request that ACFID investigate
Citipointe church’s removal of her daughters in 2008.
I have yet to have this document translated but I have
told Chanti that I do not want to be involved in her complaint. Indeed, I told
her that she was wasting her time and building her hopes up, only to have them
dashed yet again. Any investigation that excludes the MOUs, any investigation
that does not require of Citipointe that the church prove that it had a legal
right to remove Rosa and Chita in the first place, will be a sham.
Imagine an investigation in Australia that focused on
contractual law, in which the prosecutor reserved the right not to call the
actual contract in question into evidence! This would be seen, quite rightly,
as corruption on the part of the prosecutor – guaranteeing that the accused be
exonerated for lack of evidence of his or her breach of contract.
The sole function of any ACFID Code of Conduct
committee investigation, in the absence of the MOUs, will be to provide
Citipointe with a legal fig leaf, behind which it can hide. The church will
then use the findings of your committee to fend off any further questions
relating to the legality of its actions. You can be sure, also, that the church
will use your findings to bolster any other vexatious legal actions it chooses
to initiate in Cambodia.
In the meantime, Citipointe has taken its
child-stealing, sould-saving scam to India. The church has recently acquired
100 ‘orphans’ in Goa – funded, no doubt, by the Global Development Group.
That’s 100 new souls won over to Pentecostalism; 100 young girls to be used by
the church to raise funds. How many of these girls are orphans? Any of them?
Will the ACFID Code of Conduct committee ask Citipointe for evidence that these
girls are in fact orphans? No. Not until or unless the parents of one of the
girls makes a complaint. And how likely is this? Which of the parents of these
young ‘orphans’ will even know of the existence of ACFID? And even if, by
chance, they discovered that ACFID exists and they could make a complaint, they
would be in for a rude shock and major disappointment when they discovered that
the committee of which you are a part could and would do nothing to help them
get back the daughters removed by Citipointe – no doubt with the approval of
Indian government officials who have been paid to provide a patina of legality
to the church’s actions.
Your committee is a disgrace, a waste of money and
complicit in illegal activity of the kind that has led not just to Chanti and
Chhork losing their daughters (along with other materially poor Cambodian
parents) but, now, to up to 100 families
in India losing their daughters.
As far as I am concerned, as far as both my film and
book CHANTI’S WORLD are concerned, you are each morally responsible for the
breaches of law and human rights perpetrated by Citipointe church in both
Cambodia and India.
Shame on you all.
It is to be hoped, though I will not hold my breath,
that at some point in the future there will be an ICAC-style investigation into
fraud within the aid industry and that your committee will be called upon to
explain why you failed to ask Citpointe for documented proof of the legality of
its actions in 3rd world countries.
Allowing two days for
this letter to arrive at ACFID, the ACFID Code of Conduct Committee was in
possession of it for around 10 days before providing me with report that makes
no reference to it. Nor is any reference made to the translation I had made of
Chanti and Chhork’s 22nd April complaint made. It reads:
COMPLAINT
TO AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
By
Both
Chhork and Yem Chanthy
Ponley
village
Ba Paong
commune
Peam Ror
district
Prey
Veng province
Cambodia
22nd
April 2014
We, Both
Chhork and Yem Chanti, are the father
and mother of two girls – Phoun Rosa and Phoun Thida.
Our
daughters have been detained in Phnom Penh by Citipointe Church’s ‘SHE Rescue
Home’ since 31st July 2008.
We have
not given our permission to Citipointe church to detain our daughters.
For five
years we have been asking Pastor Leigh Ramsey at Citipointe church to return
our daughters. Every time she says yes soon but keeps our daughters locked up.
For five
years we have been asking Citipointe to give us copies of the MOUs the church
says it has. Citipointe tells us these MOUs say that the church can take our
daughters and keep them. We do not believe the church.
We have
asked the Cambodian Ministry of Social Affairs to give us copies of the MOUs so
that we can learn what is true and what things we must do to have Rosa and
Chita returned to our family.
The
Ministry of Social Affairs refuses to give us copies of the MOUs.
With
great respect we want the Australian Council of International Affairs to tell
Citipointe church to give us copies of the MOUs.
We have
asked Mr James Ricketson to help us by making a complaint to the Australian
Council of International Development.
Signed Signed
Both Chhork Yem
Chanthy
To date, 6th
May, no attempt has been made by the ACFID Code of Conduct committee to speak
with Chanti and Chhork or to act on their complaint, despite my having provided
the committee with their phone number.
Interestingly, the ACFID
Code of Conduct committee has asked Geoff Armstrong if he is a member of
Citipointe church but has not asked him to produce copies of the MOUs he claims
the GDG has in its possession which gave Citipointe the legal right to remove
and detain Rosa and Chita. Nor has the committee asked Mr Armstrong to produce
the court documents revealing that Chanti and Chhork relinquished their
parental rights and that the court awarded custody to Citipointe church. There
was no court case – yet another instance in which Citipointe has broken
Cambodian law.
It is difficult not to
ponder why it is that the ACFID Code of Conduct committee has chosen to ignore
Chanti and Chhork’s complaint; to go ahead with an ‘investigation’ without even
consulting with the people who have the most to gain or lose as a result of
such an investigation – Chanti and Chhork. I will leave it up to the audience
for CHANTI’S WORLD and for readers of the book by the same title to arrive at
their own conclusions regarding this question.
(3) As far as ACFID’S
refusal to request of Citipointe and the Global Development Group that they
produce the 2008 and 2009 MOUs, again, I will leave it up to my audience and
readers to join the dots. Of relevance here also is what the Cambodian Ministry of
Social Affairs guidelines have to say on alternative care for children:
“The rights of parental
authority over their children remain with the family (unless it's gone through
the courts and the family relinquishes all responsibility).”
As ACFID knows, at every
level, there was never a court case, the outcome of which being either (a) that
Chanti and Chhork relinquished responsibility or (b) that the court awarded
custody to the church. Such details are not, however, of any interest to your
Code of Conduct committee as a fact such as this (and it is a demonstrably true
fact) would make difficult the outcome
that ACFID has decided upon in relation to the legality of Citipointe’s removal
of Rosa and Chita.
I finished my letter of
yesterday to Pastor Leigh Ramsey (mistakenly dated 6th May) with the
following:
“With
such powerful allies in AusAID, ACFID etc, Citipointe will continue to win
battle after battle in the ongoing efforts made by Chanti and Chhork (with my
assistance) to get their daughters back. When CHANTI’S WORLD (both the film and
the book) are released, however, it will become apparent that your corrupt
church has lost the war.”
I am now pursuing the question of
the MOUs through legal channels in Australia, hoping to achieve in this way what
ACFID could, if it chose, achieve by simply picking up the phone – namely to
acquire copies of the 2008 and 2009 MOUs. I could also acquire copies of the
MOUs by paying more than Citpointe to the Ministry of Social Affairs than the
church is paying NOT to make copies available to anyone. This would involve me
in engaging in corrupt behavior of the kind that I have avoided this past five
years. However, if the release of Chanti and Chhork’s daughters necessitates that
I become as corrupt as Citipointe, perhaps that is the route I need to go down.
I hope not.
Wearing my filmmaker’s hat, it
matters not at all to me whether I am successful in acquiring copies of the MOUs.
The very fact that I need to go to such ends to acquire the them will speak
volumes for audiences and readers about the honesty, competence and integrity
of ACFID – with a Code of Conduct committee that cherry picks the evidence
required to achieve a pre-determined outcome. If this means pretending that the
MOUs are of no significance, so be it.
Wearing my ‘Friend of the Family’
hat I hope that my film and book will make it impossible for Citipointe NOT to
return to their family the girls it stole in 2008 - with the blessing and
finances provided by the Global Development Group and now with the tacit
approval of ACFID.
I have attached a photo taken
by Pastor Leigh Ramsey’s daughter Becky. The comments speak volumes of
Citipointe’s latest venture: the creation and exploitation of ‘orphans’ in
India (Chenai, not Goa) – all financed, no doubt, by the Global Development
Group – to increase the size of the ‘Citipointe family’. If any of the parents
of these girls should ever hear of the existence of ACFID and make a complaint
that their daughters have been stolen from them by Citipointe ACFID will, no
doubt, conduct an investigation of the kind it is conducting here – one that
does not involve speaking with the parents, one that does not involve
requesting copies of documents from Citipointe relating to the legality of the
removal of these 100 ‘orphans’; an investigtion that is designed, from its
inception, to find no fault in the church or its financial backer, the Global
Development Group.
Shame on all members of the
Code of Conduct committee for conducting sham ‘investigations’ designed to
provide cover for NGOs such as Citipointe’s ‘SHE Rescue Home’ and the Global
Development Group. It is to be hoped that at some point in the future you will
all be required, by an ICAC-style enquiry, to explain why it is that you never
asked Citipointe or the Global Development Group for the 2008 and 20089 MOUs;
why it is that you turned a blind eye to
the families of the 100 families of Indian ‘orphans’ being used, by Citipointe
and the Global Development Group to raise money for their respective NGO’s and
to save some souls for Jesus Christ in the process.
I am copying this to various
members of the media. I do not expect them to do anything with this letter
other, I trust, than to keep it on file. Citipointe, the Global Development
Group and ACFID have undoubtedly won the battle as regards the illegal removal
and detention of Rosa and Chita. Whether you all win the war remains to be seen.
The Fat Lady has not sung
yet!
best wishes
James Ricketson
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