Leigh
Ramsay
322
Wecker Road
Carindale
QLD
4152
30th
Sept. 2013
Dear
Leigh
As
I am sure you now from experience, rarely in Cambodia are things ever quite as
they seem to be.
Chanti
did not leave Phnom Penh, as I thought to be the case on 26th Sept, but stayed to try to get the family’s tuk tuk
back. Chanti had failed to tell me one small but vital piece of information
relating to the theft (or I had failed to understand through a lack of
interpreter) – namely that the family tuk tuk was ‘stolen’ by someone she
knows; someone who Chanti borrowed money from 8 – 10 years ago to pay hospital
bills and now wants me to repay it. I have met this woman several times before
and she has never informed me of this outstanding debt.
If
I repay Chanti’s close to decade-old $900 debt, this woman says, she will
return the tuk tuk to Chanti and Chhork. I asked Chanti if she had borrowed
money from this woman all those years ago. Chanti nodded, said yes, but could
not remember how much. I asked the woman if she had any record of how much
Chanti had borrowed 8 – 10 years ago. The answer was no. I told this woman, though
an interpreter, that she could not simply steal Chanti and Chhork’s tuk tuk and
then demand of me that I repay a decade old debt. She smiled and told me yes
she could. I told her that I would go to the police. She laughed.
This
woman has no paperwork to prove that Chanti borrowed a certain amount of money from her. Citipoint
had no paperwork in mid 2008 to prove that the church had a legal right to
remove Chanti’s children. In both cases the police are useless. This woman is
rich (two Lexus’ in her back yard) and Chanti is poor. She cannot afford to pay
whatever this woman pays to the police that makes her laugh at the idea that I
might report her to them. So it is in Cambodia. Justice is for the rich, not
the poor. And so it is that NGOs such a
Citipointe can do what they like with and to the poor and powerless and laugh
at the notion that the police might act in accordance with the law.
Other
than two short sequences (one to be shot in Brisbane as I alert your
congregation to Citipointe’s human rights abuses in Cambodia) my filming is at
an end. Citipointe has won the battle. You have successfully kidnapped and held
for more than five years the daughters of a poor Cambodian family with the
blessing of Chab Dai, LICADHO and the indifference of the NGO community. As
Rebecca Brewer wrote back in 2008, Citipointe will keep Rosa and Chita until
they are 18. And there is no one in Cambodia to stop you – no Cambodian
government department, no human rights organization, no cashed up NGO committed
to the alleviation of poverty and the protection of the human rights of the Chanti and Chhorks of the world.
I
should add here that after five years of inaction LICADHO has tried this past
few weeks to help. It cannot. The NGO is powerless to do anything. And the English language media here will not
even bother to ask any questions as to why and how these girls were removed in
mid 2008 with a view to separating facts from allegations.
Your
church will make a lot of money out of Rosa and Chita through donations and
sponsorship over the coming years – not one cent of which will flow back to Chanti
and her family. You will limit Rosa and Chita’s visits to their family
severely, indoctrinate these young Buddhist girls into your own warped version
of the Christian faith and then, at age 18, turf them back onto the street
again to fend for themselves whilst Citipointe continues to recruit the
daughters of poor Cambodian families and use them to raise money to fill the
church’s coffers whilst leaving the rest of the family, as you have Chanti and
her family this past five years, to fend for themselves.
In
a few weeks I will be in a position to buy Chanti and Chhork a new tuk tuk so
the family will be back on track again.
best
wishes
James
Ricketson
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