 |
| Chita (left) and Rosa (right) during a rare home visit in 2013. Their mother, Chanti, is behind them, pointing. |
James Ricketson
Europe Guest House
# 51, Street 136
Phnom Penh
015611478; 017 898 361
The Hon Julie Bishop
Minister for Foreign
Affairs
House of Representatives,
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
4th April 2014
Dear Minister
Following
on from my many previous letters.
Two
days after my court case and after close to a day in the Phnom Penh Municipal
Court, I have managed to read the complaints lodged with the court on 4th
March 2013. This is not a typographical error. As with the other accusations
made against me by Citipointe, this complaint has sat in a file at the courts
for a year before being activated within a couple of days of the Global
Development Group’s Executive Director writing the following to me:
We have thoroughly investigated
your concerns and we can’t see any area where SHE Rescue Home has not adhered
to their requirement of the ACFID Code of Conduct. Therefore a Code complaint
cannot be made…. Global Development Group has copies of all the required
documentation and has no problems with ‘SHE Rescue Home’.
How
does this statement of Geoff’s square with the following from the Cambodian Ministry of Social Affairs guidelines on
alternative care for children:
“The rights
of parental authority over their children remain with the family unless it has
gone through the courts and the family relinquishes all responsibility”.
 |
| This photograph of Rosa, taken a few months after she was illegally removed by Citipointe church in 2008, should have set alarm bells ringing in the Australian Embassy in Phnom Penh, within AusAID and ACFID if they had been doing their job properly. |
The question of the removal and detention of Rosa and Chita, for close to six years now, against the express wishes of their parents, has never been heard in a Cambodian court of law. Chanti and Chhork have not relinguished responsibility for their daughters. On the contrary, they have been asking for their return for five years.
By his own admission Geoff
Armstrong has ‘copies of all the required documentation.’ This is a lie. Geoff
does not have a copy of a document from any Cambodian court giving legal custody
of Rosa and Chita to Citipointe church’s ‘SHE Rescue Home’. What Geoff does have is a copy of the 31stJuly
2008 ‘contract’ that Leigh Ramsey tricked Chanti into signing with her thumb
print. The circumstances surrounding the signing of this fraudulent document,
alone, would see Leigh Ramsey in court for ‘illegal removal’ if the rule of law
applied in Cambodia.
 |
| Chanti and Chhork's home in 2010. Chita (left), Rosa, next to her mum, Chanti, holding baby James. |
In addition to this legally
worthless ‘contract’, Geoff Armstrong has copies of the MOUs that Citipointe
entered into with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Social
Affairs in 2008 and 2009 respectively. The Global Development Group, along with
Citipointe church, refuses to provide copies of these MOUs to Chanti and
Chhork, to myself or any other person who has asked to see them. There is a
simple reason for this. Both the Global Development Board and Citipointe know
that the church has broken Cambodian law and are reliant on a corrupt judiciary
to maintain custody of the girls illegally removed in 2008. The same applies
for ACFID. Sam Mostyn and Marc Purcell (President and Executive Director
respectively) either know that Rosa and Chita were removed illegally but turn a
blind eye to the fact or, if they were doing their job properly, should know. I
have repeatedly asked ACFID if, in the course of an investigation into
Citipointe church’s removal of Rsoa and Chita, it would ask the church to
provide copies of the MOUs. Both Sam Mostyn and Marc Purcell refuse to answer
this question! Why?
 |
| Chita in her mum and dad's home in 2010. The Khmer Citipointe staff member who was supposed to 'supervise' the visit, left the girls unsupervised for a couple of hours! |
And now you, Minister, along with
Ambassador Alison Burrow, know that Rosa and Chita were removed illegally in
2008 (or should know if you were doing your jobs properly) and that for close
to six years the girls have been held captive by the church in the absence of
any legal proceeding that gives the church this right. Instead of calling in
the Federal Police to investigate this kidnapping, DFAT gets Mignon Bleach to
inform me, in an email, that: “your concerns
have been noted.” AusAID has a
duty of care for the recipients of Australian aid and has failed dismally in
protecting Chanti and Chhork’s legal, moral and human rights; failed dismally
in protecting the legal, moral and human rights of other clients of Australian
NGOs.
It is not my ‘concerns’ that should
be noted by DFAT, it is the kidnapping of Rosa and Chita by Citipointe that
should not only be noted but acted upon. How much evidence do you need of NGO
scams in Cambodia before you will act?
 |
| Chita (left) and Rosa (right) have been presented to the world, by Citipointe, as 'victims of human trafficking'. In reality, they are victims of the church's child-stealing scam - a scam knowingly endorsed and financed by Brisbane-based NGO, the Global Development Group (GDG), with the tacit approval of the Australian Council for International Development, the Australian Embassy in Phnom Penh and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. |
The judge who sentenced me in
absentia was very reluctant to provide me with a copy of the complaint made
against me by Citipointe but, after close to a day of arm-twisting, allowed me
to copy it out by hand. Here it is:
I, Le-Anne Ramsey The
representative of Citipointe International Care and Aid, located at XXXXX
The prosecutor submitted to Phnom
Penh Court of First Instance
Suing Mr James Ricketson, born 1st
April 1949, Australian, holding passport number XXXXX – a filmmaker,
whose address is uncertain in Phnom Penh of blackmail.
Referring to the subject
mentioned above, I would like to inform the Prosecutor that Mr James Ricketson
(James) has tried all his means to support and incite the mother of two girls
named Kunthy Chita and Kunthy Rosa to get the two girls who are vulnerable
children of human trafficking out of the NGO’s shelter in order to gain his
personal interest. However, until today the Department of Social Affairs and
Veterans has not allowed the NGO to reintegrate the two girls into their family
because the status of the family still not good enough to secure the safety and
education of the two girls with the intention to force the NGO to return the
two children, this person has published in his blog to defame the NGO and disclose
the identity or the two vulnerable children and their mother who was the
trafficked girl. His acts are against the article 25.3 and 49 of the Law on
Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation in Article 25 and 49. On 10/02/2013, this person sent an email to
threaten me and the NGO to return the two children otherwise he will publish
online the information which he has already prepared to defame the NGO. This
threatening is a crime under article 372 of the Criminal Coe of Cambodia. So I
would like the Prosecutor to charge Mr James Ricketson according to the law. Please
accept my highest consideration. Made Phnom Penh on 1st March 2013
 |
| Rosa's grandmother, Vanna, lost all 8 of her children during the Khmer Rouge years (1975 - 1979) to starvation and illness. She lost her only two grand-daughters to Citipointe church! Chanti, born 7 or so years after the defeat of the Khmer Rouge, is Vanna's only surviving child out of nine. |
The March 2013 date is not a typographical error. These absurd allegations, along with the others made at around the same time (‘hindering’, ‘profiting from prostitution’), have sat on file at the Phnom Penh Municipal court until such time as Citipointe and the Global Development Group needed to use them - in the hope of intimidating me into silence about their child-stealing and evangelical scam in Cambodia. Pastor Brian Mulheran’s letter of Feb 2013 was a warning shot across the bow. When I refused to be intimated, Citipointe attempted to use the Cambodian legal system to silence me. That Citipointe will not sue me in Australia speaks volumes of the church’s real agenda here and its lack of moral scruples.
 |
| Vanna was devastated by the loss of her grand-daughters to Citipoint church's evangelising and money-raising scam but, like Chanti and Chhork (mum and dad) she has no voice in the world inhabited by Citipointe and other NGOs whose ignorance and arrogance blinds them to the fact that Cambodian mothers and grandmothers love their daughters and grand-daughters as we privileged members of the planetary aristocracy do. |
The
content of Le-Anne’s ‘blackmail’ Complaint is not worthy of a detailed response
but I would like to point out that Rosa and Chita were never victims of human
trafficking. Nor was Chanti ever a victim of human trafficking. Le-Anne Ramsey is
lying.
For
some time now I have thought of Lee-Anne Ramsey as a compulsive liar. I now
think her to be a pathological liar. Her lies and the soft core thuggery of
Pastor Brian Mulheran are actively supported by the Global Development Group.
Both should have their tax-deductible status revoked and an independent
investigation be conducted into how Citipointe and the GDG have managed to
breach AusAID guidelines an the ACFID Code of Conduct. As I have mentioned in a
previous letter, ACFID should not be involved in such an investigation as it
too is complicit in turning a blind eye to the human rights abuses that occur
on a daily basis in Cambodia and, it is my guess, in other 3rd world
countries where faith-based NGOs use AusAID approved tax-deductible funds to
break up families and proselytize.
best
wishes
James
Ricketson
 |
| No words are necessary here. |
No comments:
Post a Comment