Ms Sam Mostyn
President
Australian Council for
International Development
20th March 2014
Dear Ms Mostyn
It is now more than a month since
I wrote my first letter to you, on 18th Feb. You have not had the
professional courtesy to even acknowledge receipt of this or any other of my
subsequent letters. Yes, I have had some communication with an ACFID Spin
Doctor (Chris Adams) but other than that, silence. No answers to questions. Not
even those that require no more than a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ answer. As for Marc
Purcell, his brief email responses to me reveal him to be little more than a
Spin Doctor being paid, presumably, a higher wage than Chris Adams.
I have had sufficient dealings
with Spin Doctors over the years to know what a waste of time it is
communicating with them. Their job is to obfuscate and lie so that people such
as yourself can avoid answering questions and appear blameless if and when the
organization you head is found to be corrupt or incompetent. Such is the world
we live in, based on the increasingly false premise that we stupid members of
the general public will believe whatever nonsense Spin Doctors feed to us.
I have written to you quite
deliberately this past month since, as President, you are the captain of the
ACFID boat and, much as you might like to be able to blame someone further down
the hierarchical ladder (Marc Purcell, say), this will not wash if it is you
who have been asked the questions. And they are not difficult ones. Let me ask
again:
“Do parents in the 3rd
world whose children are removed by Australian NGOs (supposedly working in
accordance with the ACFID Code of Conduct) have a right to be provided with
documents relating to the legality of their chldren’s removal?”
In this case, the document in
question is an MOU that Citipointe claims it entered into with the Cambodian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2008. This is an MOU that Geoff Armstrong
insists the Global Development Group has a copy of.
Given that the existence or
non-existence of this 2008 MOU goes to the very heart of the legality of the
church’s actions, why does ACFID steadfastly refuse to demand of Citipointe
that it provide a copy to Chanti and Chhork, to myself as their legally
appointed advocate; to journalists now following this story?
Given that the Global Development
Group is a signatory to the ACFID Code of Conduct, why do you, as President,
steadfastly refuse to ask Geoff Armstrong, Executive Director of the Global
Development Group, to provide you with a copy? Is this because Marc Purcell is
a friend of Geoff’s? Or is the ‘Geoff’ Marc refers to in his email of XXX
another Geoff altogether?
Let’s just say that, after five
years of asking, an MOU appears that does give Citipointe (and hence other
NGOs) the right to remove children from their families, the question still
remains:
“Do the parents have a right to
(a) be provided with a copy of the MOU, (b) be provided with reasons for their
children’s removal, (c) be provided with an avenue of appeal against the
decision to remove, (d) to be informed as to their visitation rights, (e) be
able to request that their children not be indoctrinated into a branch of the
Christian faith, and (f) of what they must do to get their children back?”
Or is it OK for an NGO provided
with tax-deductible status by AusAID and ACFID to enter into any agreement it
likes with a government department in Cambodia (and other 3rd world
countries) and then use this MOU to do pretty much whatever it pleases,
answerable to no-one? If so, of what use is ACFID? Of what use is a Code of
Conduct that can simply be breached by an unscrupulous NGO entering into
whatever MOU arrangement it likes with a corrupt government official in the 3rd
world?
Does ACFID have any interest at
all in safeguarding the legal and human rights of the parents whose children
are removed from their families to take up residence in sham ‘orphanages’? Is
ACFID concerned about the rights of the children so removed? It is telling,
despite all of my correspondence to date, that no-one from AusAID, no-one from
DFAT, no representative of the Australian Embassy in Cambodia, no
representative of ACFID has even thought to talk with the parents of the
removed girls – Chanti and Chhork. They are deemed to be irrelevant – the fate
of their brown-skinned Buddhist daughters in the hands of bureaucrats
(government and non-government) in Australia who cannot be bothered to even
pick up the phone and speak with them.
At present Citipointe is trying
everything it can do to shut me up, to shut me down. The church is putting into
action what Pastor Brian Mulheran threatened on 21st Feb 2013 – to have me
arrested, charged and banned from making future trips to Cambodia. The charges
against me are so ludicrous (‘hindering’, ‘blackmail’, ‘profiting from
prostitution’) that they would be laughable were Cambodia not a country in
which a journalist can receive a jail sentence for suggesting that the hanging
of fairy lights off Angkor Wat might not be such a great idea!
It will not surprise me at all
if, when I arrive in Cambodia tomorrow evening if I am arrested at the airport
on whatever new dodgy charges Citipointe may like to bring against me. In the
event that this occurs and I wind up in court I would certainly like to have
with me a copy of the MOU that Citipointe claims to have entered into with
‘Foreign Affairs’ in 2008. This could be my ‘Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free’ card. It
would also provide cogent evidence as to why Pastor Leigh Ramsey should be
charged with the illegal removal of Rosa and Chita in 2008.
If ACFID takes its Code of
Conduct seriously, if ACFID has any commitment at all to the precepts of
transparency and accountability you should be able to get on the phone to
Pastor Leigh Ramsey and Geoff Armstrong today and say:
“Please scan and send a copy of
the 2008 MOU in the next two hours.”
If the 2008 MOU did not give
Citipointe the right to detain Rosa and Chita contrary to the express wishes of
their parents, ACFID should immediately do whatever is in its power to close
the ‘SHE Rescue Home’ down or, at the very least, strip the NGO of its
tax-deductible status. ACFID should immediately insist that Citipointe provide
copies of all documents relating to all of the girls the church has ‘rescued’
this past five years. How many other girls were illegally removed? How many
other parents’ hearts have been broken as a result of placing their thumb
prints on ‘contracts’ as fraudulent as the 31st July 2008 Citipointe
got Chanti to sign.
At what point did the Global
Development Group partner with (and fund) Citipointe? Did the Global
Development Group ever ask Citipointe for documents relating to the legality of
its actions in removing Rosa and Chita and other girls in 2008? If not, is this
simple incompetence or is it a breach of ACFID guidelines? And if it is a
breach, does ACFID have the power to give the Global Development Group anything
other than a slap on the wrist?
A whole host of questions will
arise if the 2008 MOU does not give Citipointe the rights the church has
exercised this past 5 years? And these questions should be addressed in a very
public context – not behind closed doors. And anyone (including yourself) who
may be a friend of Geoff Armstrong’s or Pastor Leigh Ramsey or who is a member
of Citipointe church should not be involved in any investigation that takes
place.
If ACFID is not complicit in the
illegal removal of children from their families, if only through its refusal to
ask questions, prove it today by getting hold of a copy of the contentious MOU
and making it public.
best wishes
James Ricketson
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