Directors
of the Global Development Group Board
Unit
6, 734 Underwood Road
Rochedale, QLD 4123
26th Feb 2014
Dear
David James Pearson, Geoffrey Winston
Armstrong
Ofelia (fe) Luscombe, Alan Benson,
David Robertson
Imagine
this. You are an NGO in Cambodia. You wish to reintegrate two girls back into
their impoverished family in Prey Veng.
Your every effort ends in failure, however, because there is this very
annoying chap from Australia who keeps thwarting your plans. After around five
years of this, unable to stand it any more, you decide to lodge a complaint
with the relevant Cambodian authorities. Who do you turn to? The answer is
obvious! The Trafficking police. They’ll be able to sort this annoying
Australian out!
Do
you, dear board members, seriously believe that Citipointe church would turn to
the Trafficking Police to help them with a re-integration problem? And do you
think that the Trafficking Police, would take on the job? Almost anything is
possible in Cambodia but the Trafficking Police investigating a child
re-integration problem is stretching credibility somewhat! This story does not
pass the laugh test and yet Geoff Armstrong seems to have swallowed
Citipointe’s unlikely tale whole!
But
let’s just presume for a moment that the Trafficking Police, with nothing
better to do with their time, decide to take on this thorny re-integration problem and let’s just pretend
that there isn’t a wealth of correspondence that exposes Citipointe church’s
proposition as nonsense. Why don’t each of you board members visit my
Citipointe blog and, quite at random, choose three different blog entries to
read. It is virtually guaranteed that in each of the three you will find me
advocating strenuously for the reintegration of Rosa and Chita back into their
family. Or, if you want to be more thorough, and you should be given what is at
stake here, see if you can find one sentence in any of my 160 blog entries in
which there is evidence that I have thwarted the reintegration of Rosa and Chit
back into their family?
That
Geoff Armstrong can place such nonsense
on record (such easily demonstrable nonsense!) is a little mind boggling. It
has made not just me, but a few others, smile and shake our heads in disbelief
so we are grateful for the comic relief!
Following
on from my letters of 8th, Feb, 12th Feb, 13th
Feb and 18th Feb. now, and in acknowledgement of Geoff Armstrong’s
letter to me of 25th Feb. And, of course, taking into account my
response to Geoff’s letter – also dated 25th Feb., lets get serious
now.
I
have attached two documents. One is a photocopy on the contract that Citipointe
asked Chanti and her mother to place their thumb prints on on 31st.
July 2008. The other is the translation I had made of this ‘contract’ in
November 2008 when I first it and when it was apparent that Citipointe had no
intention of returning Chanti and Chhork’s daughters to them until they were 18.
I strongly suggest that the GDG have this July 2008 Khmer ‘contract’ translated
and that you get a legal opinion as to its validity as a contract.
It
was on the basis of this 31st July 2008 document that Citipointe
claimed, both in writing to me and in recorded telephone conversations with me,
that the church had a legal right to hold Rosa and Chita until they were 18
years old. On the basis of the 31st July 2008 ‘contract’ Citipointe
had no such right – as I am sure your lawyers will tell you.
When it became apparent that no-one acknowledged the validity of this
‘contract’ (not even the Trafficking
Police investigating the serious re-integration problem Citipointe had brought
to their attention!) the church announced that the ‘SHE Rescue Home’ had
entered into another contract with the Ministry of Social Affairs. Could Chanti
and Chhork have a copy of it? No! Could I, as their legally appointed advocate,
have a copy. No! Were Chanti and Chhork allowed to be told, by either the
Ministry of Social Affairs or Citipointe why their daughters could not be
returned to them? No. Do you, members of the Global Development board, believe
that Citipointe and the Ministry of Social Affairs have a right to withhold
this information from parents? This is not a rhetorical question.
The Global Development Group does
have copies of the contracts and/or agreements that Chanti and Chhork have been
denied. Do you believe, dear members of the board, that this is fair? (This is
not a rhetorical question). Do you believe that the parents of children removed
by an NGO on the basis of a fraudulent ‘contract’ (31st July 2008) have
a right to be provided with what the NGO purports, some years down the track,
to be a genuine contract? Again, this is not a rhetorical question. Answer
these questions with spin if you so choose, or do not answer them at all. The
questions are on the record now and your failure to answer them, should this be
the case, will be on record also.
I am sure that you need no reminding from me that as directors of the
Global Development Group you have certain responsibilities. Nonetheless, I will
remind you anyway:
“Directors are unable to
hide behind ignorance of the company’s affairs, where that ignorance is of
their own making.
This means that directors should question information that is put before
them to ensure that it is truly representative of the company’s position and
not just accept what may be put to them by employees of the company.”
I am less interested here in your legal
responsibilities than in your moral responsibilities.
I trust, before you decide to ignore the
many questions I have asked in my letters, or get Geoff Armstrong to write
another curt, dismissive and spin-laden letter, that you consider the possible
ramifications for the reputation of the Global Development Group if it becomes
public knowledge that the GDG refused to even look at evidence that was offered
to it relating to Citipointe church’s serious breaches of the ACFID Code of
Conduct.
If you have any doubts about my resolve,
skim through the 160 entries on my Citipointe blog and form your own judgment
as to whether or not I am the kind of person who can or will be put off by
bluff and bluster of the kind that Geoff engaged in in his letter of 25th
Feb.
If you wish to stand by Citipointe
church this is, I suppose, admirable on one level. For your own sakes, for the
sake of the Global Development Group, however, please make sure that you have
all the relevant facts at your disposal before you throw your hats irrevocably
into the ring with Citipointe. Nothing in Cambodia is ever quite as it seems to
be!
Chanti, Chhork and myself are in Phnom
Penh and available to meet with any one of the Global Development Group’s three
Cambodian representatives today, tomorrow or any day in the near future.
best wishes
James Ricketson
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