Leigh Ramsey
322 Wecker Road
Carindale
QLD 4152
26th March 2014
Dear Leigh
I will begin this letter with a request I have made dozens of times now this past 5 years:
“Please provide Chanti and Chork with a copy of the MOU that Citipointe entered into with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2008.”
Do you still believe this 2008 MOU gave your church the right to remove girls from their families? If so, why was there any necessity to present mothers and fathers with sham ‘contracts’ such as the one you tricked Chanti and her mother,Vanna, into signing on 31st July 2008?
This 2008 MOU should not be confused with the Nov 2009 MOU that Citipointe entered into with the Ministry of Social Affairs. Could you please sup[ply Chanti and Chhork with a copy of this MOU also – as we have been requesting for the past four years. The only knowledge we have of its contents is the following from MoSAVY - the sole justification the Ministry of Social Affairs has provided in five and a half years for its decision to turn a blind eye to Citipointe church’s illegal removal:
For the SHE resuce (sic) project, according to the agreement made with the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation, the organization has projected to help victims of human trafficking and sex trade as well as families which fall so deep in poverty. After questioning directly, the ministry believes that Rosa must have been in any of the above categories.
That MoSAVY ‘believes’ (as opposed to knows) that Rosa must have been in any of the above categories’ does not suggest much in the way of thorough research or the asking of questions. Certainly, the Ministry never spoke with Chanti or Chhork. If they had they would have discovered that in the same month the Ministry wrote this letter, Chhork was running a boat on the Bassac River for tourists, Chanti had a stall by the river selling snacks to tourists and the family lived on the house boat – in much greater comfort than the majority of Cambodians.
You will see, from the attached letter to the Investigating Judge, dated 25th March, that my participation in any court proceedings in April is contingent on being supplied with a copy of the MOU. If Citipointe had no legal right to remove and detain Rosa and Chita in the first place, the whole house of cards upon which Citipointe’s latest attempt to have me arrested and jailed falls into a heap. Indeed, if Citipointe cannot produce the 2008 MOU or if, on producing it, it is found to give your church none of the rights you have exercised this past five years, it is you who should be charged, not me.
I know nothing about the charges that Citipointe has laid against me in this new court proceeding other than what I have read in the newspapers. ‘Blackmail’, it seems! Given the date on which I am supposed to have ‘blackmailed’ Citipointe it would appear that this is one month after Pastor Brian Mulheran threatened to have me ‘forcibly removed.’ To refresh your memory, Leigh, here is an extract from Pastor Mulheran’s 21st Feb 2013 letter:
“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.”
Intimidation pure and simple! And it turns out that Pastor Mulheran’s scarcely veiled threat was not just the bluff and bluster of a Christian bully but very real indeed.
I have, this morning, been to the Phnom Penh District Court in an attempt to hand deliver a Khmer version of the attached letter to the relevant judge. It was not possible. I need a Case Number or a copy of a warrant/summons in order to find out the name of the judge dealing with this matter. Could you please provide me with this information?
Given that the illegal removal of Rosa and Chita has, at last, caught the attention of others in a position to demand answers to questions, here are a few that I hope will be asked:
(1) Has Citipointe, at any time this past five years, provided any support at all to Chanti’s family? If so, could the church please provide information in relation to their support, what form it took, when it was provided and so on.
It is my Chanti and Chhork’s contention (backed up by my own observations) that Citipointe has not given $1 in support to the family this past five years.
(2) Has Citipointe, at any time in the past five years, drawn up a re-integration program with the express desire to see Rosa and Chita re-integrated back into their family?
I have requested this many times but to no avail. There has, I contend, never 3ver been any attempt made to re-integrate Rosa and Chita back into the family.
(3) Why has Citipointe, this past couple of years, repeatedly referred to Rosa and Chita as ‘victims of human trafficking’ when it is clear from the sham 31st July 2008 ‘contract’ that it was poverty that drove Chanti and her mother to accept the assistance being offered by Citipointe?
There are many more questions, but these will suffice and I trust that these questions will be asked by people who are not prepared to accept ‘spin’ answers; that whatever answers Citipointe does provide are checked for their factual accuracy. This last point is very important as both you and Pastor Brian Mulheran have played fast and loose with the truth so often that nothing either of you say can be relied on to be true.
Citipointe has developed a very successful money-raising and evangelizing model with the help of the Global Development Group. Your church is able to use AusAID and ACFID approved and tax-deductible funds to remove girls from their families and indoctrinate them into Citipointe’s version of the Christian faith. You have been able to manage this right under the noses of so many AusAID, DFAT and ACFID officials who should, if they were doing their jobs properly, have asked to see the 2008 MOU, the 2009 MOU and all other agreements, contracts, MOUs relating to the removal of Rosa and Chita. These same officials should have also insisted that the parents – Chanti and Chhork – be provided with copies of these documents. They have not. They have been asleep at the wheel.
Now, with this money-raising/evangelizing model firmly established Citipointe has acquired a substantial number churches in Goa, India with the intention of setting up 'rescue homes' in that state. If your church replicates its Australian fund-raising and evangelizing model in India it is fair to presume that the following will occur:
(1) Poor Indian parents will be tricked into giving up their daughters.
(2) These girls will then be indoctrinated into Citipointe’s version of the Christian faith.
(3) Australian tax-payers, via tax-deductible donations, will be footing the bill for your Indian evangelizing venture.
This, of course, is a matter for the Indian authorities to deal with (and I will be warning the relevant Goan authorities to be very careful in their dealings with Citipointe.) However, if Australian tax dollars (through tax-deductible donations) are used to break up materially poor Indian families and to indoctrinate the daughters of these families into Citipointe's particular brand of Pentecostalism, this is a matter that should be of interest to both AusAID and ACFID. If this evangelizing is assisted by funds contributed to Citipointe by the Global Development Group in contravention of AusAID rules and the ACFID Code of Conduct it is to be hoped that both AusAID and ACFID will stop turning a blind eye to such braches and the human rights abuses that arise from them.
If you could please supply me with details of the case you have brought against me re ‘blackmail’ I would greatly appreciate it.
I have attached, also, a copy of the letter I wrote to Pastor Brian Mulheran on 4th March – a letter which, of course, has resulted in no response at all.
best wishes
James Ricketson
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