Julia Overton
24th March, 2013
Dear Julia
Authorities have raided an Australian-run orphanage in the Cambodian
capital Phnom Penh and taken away 21 children, some as young as one year old.
So began an article in the Sydney Morning
Herald over the weekend – to be found in full at:
As you know, CHANTI’S WORLD has, as one of
its central story threads, my attempts to retrieve two girls – Rosa, aged 11
and Chita, aged 10 – ‘stolen’ by Brisbane based Citipointe church from their
mother, Chanti, in 2008.
Close to five years down the track I am
still trying to get Rosa and Chita released back into the family’s care and
incurring the wrath of Citipointe church in the process. Writes Pastor Mulheran
on 21st Feb:
“Using the law is the last thing that we want
to see happen because for you to be convicted of a crime and serve a sentence
may mean that you will never have the opportunity to re-enter Cambodia again.”
Other than making a film which will raise a
whole range of questions about what Citipointe is doing in Cambodia, I am also lobbying to have Citipointe church’s She Rescue Home closed
down for breaking both Cambodian and Australian law. This isot a way to win
friends and influence people as Pastor Mulheran makes clear:
“We sincerely do not want
to have to go down a legal pathway of seeing you forcibly removed…”
The church is doing
all it can to prevent CHANTI’S WORLD from being completed or broadcast:
“You either cease all
aspects of production of the documentary film,” writes Pastor Mulheran, “or
remove all content which would identify the mother and the girls who are or
were all child victims.”
The word ‘intimidation’ springs to mind.
Claire Jager’s 2009 assessment of CHANTI’S
WORLD was prescient:
If the film was to be
the story of how an evangelical Christian missionary agency ‘steals’ children
from poverty-stricken Cambodian families in order to turn them into Christians
as quid pro quo for ‘rescuing’ them from the street of Phnom Penh - an
unholy exchange of succour for souls
- and as a bonus, the main
character has been continuously filmed for 14 years since she was a child, and
now enlists the help of the hopelessly enmeshed filmmaker to get her own
children back from the Christian agency which is acting illegally ... then we
have a great film.
Unfortunately, as you know, problems with
my 2009 application arose when Claire failed to view the DVD which contained a
7 minute promo for CHANTI’S WORLD. If Claire had viewed the promo she may well
have discovered that all of the elements she felt were necessary to make a “great
film” were actually there. My point
right now, however, close to five years down the track, is not whether my 2009
‘promo’ was good or not but whether you, Ross Mathews or Claire Jager ever saw
it; whether any of you will admit to seeing it or not seeing it.
In the August 2010 meeting between
yourself, myself, Ross Mathews and, for a significant part of it, Liz Crosby,
you and Ross both admitted that you had not seen my “Chanti’s World’ promo. And
Ross confirmed that, with my first application, Claire had not seen it either.
This is my recollection, my very clear recollection and this is what I have
been stating for the last two and a half years in my correspondence. No-one
within Screen Australia has ever sought to contradict me and say, “James, you
are wrong. We all, all three of us, have no recollection of our telling you we
had not viewed your promo. Of course we
viewed it.” Instead, Fiona Cameron chose to rewrite history and make the
assertion that I had come away from this August meeting between yourself,
myself, Ross and Liz, with the belief that my CHANTI’S WORLD application (which
I had not even made yet) had been greenlit. I had, Fiona insisted, made this
clear in my correspondence. Of course, two years later when I managed to get
from Fiona the correspondence in which I had supposedly claimed that I thought
my application had been greenlit, it contains no such assertion! But then facts
are of no relevance or importance to Fiona when she has wishes to create a
narrative in which it is not Screen Australia that has cocked up but myself who
has come away from a meeting thinking (nudge nudge, wink wink!) that the
application I have not even made has been ‘greenlit’.
By the time my dispute with Screen
Australia over what was and what was not said in this August 2010 meeting vis a
vis my promo had escalated to the level of total absurdity, you were no longer
at Screen Australia so I did not bother to ask you (as I did all others present
in the meeting) if you have a clear recollection of admitting, along with Ross,
that you had not seen my promo. As you know, much flows from this – my ultimate
banning, my twice being arrested and once jailed. If you confirm that you and
Ross admitted to not having seen the promo then the entire house of cards upon
which Fiona Cameron has built her case, collapses in a heap and my letters to
Screen Australia, far from being ‘intimidating’ were merely my persistent
desire for the truth to be known and acknowledged. As you know, it is my
allegedly ‘intimidating correspondence’ that has led to my being banned by Ruth
Harley and the Screen Australia board.
So, Julia, my question of you is a simple
one: In our August 2010 meeting did you and Ross admit to not having seen my 7
minute “Chanti’s World” promo or not? Yes or no.
I do appreciate that it is difficult for
you to say ‘yes’ as this would raise the question as to why Ross, Claire and
Liz have not said ‘yes’ at any time this past two and a half years despite my
frequent requests for a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ answer.
If you answer ‘no’, then it would appear
that I have been lying all this time, though one wonders why it is that it has
taken two and a half years for anyone in the room that day to provide a simple
‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.
Of course there is also the corrupt
politician’s answer: “I don’t recollect.”
My letter of 11th Feb to
Foreign Minister Bob Carr will make apparent that I do not intend, after five
years of trying, to cease in my efforts to see justice done to Chanti:
Nor do I intend to cease, no matter how
long it takes, lobbying to see that I also am dealt with justly. Perhaps Senator
Brandis, when he is Minister for the Arts (which it seems he will be by the end
of the year) will have a different attitude towards the precepts of
transparency and accountability than Mr Crean. If Screen Australia has evidence
that I have intimidated or placed at risk members of Screen Australia’s staff, I
trust that Senator Brandis will request of the Screen Australia Board to make
this publicly known and have me (at my own request) branded a liar. If Screen
Australia can provide no evidence at all in any of my correspondence of the
crimes for which I have been tried and committed (without being provided with
any evidence or an opportunity to defend myself) I am owed an apology and the
ban on me should be lifted.
Your ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer will help
resolve this dispute one way or another and I hope that you do not take the “I
don’t recollect” option.
best wishes
James Ricketson
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