# 46 to Julie Bishop, Foreign Minister re court date of 2nd April and family reintegration, dated 28th March 2014

Rosa and Chita's brothers - James and Kevin
- and sister Srey Ka

The Hon Julie Bishop

Minister for Foreign Affairs

House of Representatives, Parliament House


Canberra ACT 2600                                                                          

28^th March 2014

Dear Minister

I have, this morning, attended Phnom Penh court with my Case Number – provided to me by Pastor Brian Mulheran. Brian has not, however, provided me with any indication of what I wrote and when I wrote whatever it is that the church considers to be ‘blackmail’.

The court has informed me that the evidence is no longer relevant since I have already (on 14^th March) had an opportunity to respond to the church’s accusations. That I did not know that there was a court case on (no summons, no warrant), that I was in Australia at the time, is a matter, I have been informed, for my lawyer to take up with the judge before sentencing.

Rosa and Chita's father (Chhork), brothers Kevin and James, mother (Chanti, holding Poppy), sister (Srey Ka) and grandmother - Vanna

I will not have a lawyer, I will be representing myself, I informed the court. It is not possible, I was informed. “In Cambodia you must have a lawyer.”

With or without a lawyer I will be attending court on 2^nd April but will not be participating in any legal proceeding in the absence of the 2008 and 2009 MOUs. If these MOUs point to Citipointe having acted in accordance with Cambodian law in removing Rosa and Chita, the church may have the makings of a ‘blackmail’ case. If the MOUs do not, there is no case to answer and Citipointe should be charged with ‘illegal removal’.

Rosa and Chita's sister, Srey Ka, whom they only get to see rarely during visits supervised by church personnel

(I have searched through my correspondence from April 2013 in search of evidence of my attempt to ‘blackmail’ Citipointe and the closest I have been able to come up with is a series of questions I asked of Pastor Leigh Ramsey – to be found at: http://citipointechurch.blogspot.com/2013/04/21-of-many-questions-that-citipointe.html)

In order to avoid bad publicity for Citipointe (my being convicted of ‘blackmail’ on 2^nd April) the church is moving with lightning speed now to get Rosa and Chita back to their family. After five years of refusing to implement any re-integration program, the church now, it seems, wishes to bypass such a program and dump the girls back with their family as soon as possible - in the hope, perhaps, that the question of the legality of the church’s removal of Rosa and Chita in 2008 will magically disappear. Then, free of any scrutiny, accountable to no-one and with both AusAID and ACFID asleep at the wheel, the church will be free to fill Rosa and Chita’s beds with two other girls from materially poor families – two more souls to be harvested for Jesus Christ; two more girls the church can present to donors and sponsors as ‘victims of human trafficking’ or at risk of same. The breakup of these girls’ families and their enforced conversation to Christianity will be financed, through the Global Development Group, with tax-deductible Australian dollars.

Rosa and Chita's mum and dad with (from left) Kevin, James, baby Poppy and Srey Ka

Returning Rosa and Chita to their family with unseemly haste would be a big mistake. This would be obvious to anyone with professional experience in child welfare, child protection and the complexities of re-integration after six years of Pentecostal indoctrination.

On 12^th March, in a letter to the Global Development Group and Citipointe church, I included the following re re-integration:

…Citipointe and GDG can, of course, proceed down the path of intimidation if you so wish. Who knows, you may even find a Judge prepared to put me in jail and so fulfill your prophesy, Brian. This will only serve to draw maximum attention to Citipointe’s illegal removal and detention of Rosa and Chita in 2008. In many way, though I do not particularly wish to find myself in a Cambodian jail, my incarceration  would, at least, make this story newsworthy and you would all find yourself being asked a whole range of questions that you would prefer not to answer by print and TV journalists.

Rosa and Chita have missed out entirely on the first 15 months in the life if their youngest sister, Poppy

An alternative path to go down would be, in the most gracious way possible, with whatever saving of face your respective spin doctors can conjure up, to admit that you have, separately and in unison, broken Cambodian law by illegally removing Rosa and Chita from their family and abrogated the human rights of Chanti and Chhork’s entire family. You could acknowledge this and return Rosa and Chita to their family and that would be the end of it. Chanti and Chhork want nothing more than to get their daughters back.

Here is how it could happen with a minimum of trauma for Rosa and Chita:

(1) Rosa and Chita leave the ‘SHE Rescue Home’ and take up temporary residence in a non-denominational NGO home of some kind that has no affiliation with Citipointe.

(2) A sensible re-integration program is formulated by professionals experience in the complexities inherent in re-integration with the best interests of Rosa and Chia in mind.

(3) Over a period of a few months Rosa and Chita are (a) allowed visits to their family in Prey Veng and (b) their bothers, sisters, mother and father are allowed  visits to them in the non-denominational NGO in which they are now residing.

(4) This process of gradual re-integration is monitored and adjusted to take into account unforeseeable problems by professionals who know what they are doing.

(5) As this gradual re-integration process is taking place a second dwelling is be built on Chanti and Chhork’s property in Prey Veng. There is room for a second house and I will pay for the construction of it so that Rosa and Chita can have some of the personal privacy that I imagine they are accustomed to in the ‘SHE Rescue Home’.

(6) During this gradual re-integration process I will be looking into the various options open to Rosa and Chita to guarantee that they get a high quality education. This is a goal that I wish for all of Chanti and Chhork’s children. Srey Ka, James and Kevin are, at present, attending a private school in Prey Veng at my expense because the school in their village is not adequate to provide them with a good education.

It may well be that the only way that Rosa and Chita can get a high quality education is by going to a school in Phnom Penh. If so, I am in a position to pay their school fees and their boarding fees if necessary.

(7) Only when the re-integration process has achieved the above-mentioned goals should Rosa and Chita be returned to the full time care of their parents. This is not because Chanti and Chhork are anything other than good parents. It is an acknowledgment that the re-integration process will throw up problems, challenges, that must be met with the best interests of Rosa and Chita at heart.

Given the heartache that Citipointe church and the Global Development Group have caused Chanti, Chhork, Rosa and Chita, I think it appropriate that both NGOs compensate the family. My suggestion is as follows:

(a) A trust fund be set up by Citipointe and GDG to pay for the education of all of Chanti and Chhork’s children.

(b) This trust fund should be administered by a completely independent NGO with no affiliation with GDG, with Citipointe or with myself. It’s sole aim would be to pay legitimate school and university fees into the future. If, for whatever reason, any of  the 6 children drop out of school, the family receives no compensation for their education.

(c) If all 6 children go on to university their fees are paid for by GDG and Citipointe.

I stress, I will not and should not be involved in any way with the administration of this trust fund. And nor should GDG or Citipointe. It is imperative that the NGO controlling the funds is totally independent of all of us.

The fine tuning of the above suggestions will take some time but are achievable if there is a will, on the part of all parties, for some variation of them to be put into practice to see Rosa and Chita are re-integrated back into the family in the most appropriate way; in a way that minimizes  the traumatic impact of their being taken out of the world that they have lived in for close to six years and returned to the world of their family (nuclear and extended), the world of their community and the world of their Buddhist culture and religion.

Rosa and Chita's dad - a non-drinking, no-smoking, non-gambling gentle man who adores his children and whose heart has been broken by the loss of his two eldest daughters.

If both Citipointe and the Global Development Group agree to the broad outlines of what I am suggesting here, perhaps the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) could play the role of independent arbiter – with the intention of guaranteeing the well-being of Rosa and Chita and with no regard at all for the vested interests of Citipointe, of the Global Development Group or myself.

I await your response to this letter with interest!

I received no response to this letter from either Citipointe or the Global Development Group. The entire letter can be found at:

http://globaldevelopmentgroup.blogspot.com/2014/03/letter-to-global-development-group-and.html

Srey Ka, James, Kevin, Chanti and Poppy in the family tuk tuk

I am not an expert in either child welfare or re-integration so it may be that some of what I have suggested above is impractical or misconceived. I will certainly defer to those with more experience in these matters than I have. If the re-integration of Rosa and Chita back into their family is not handled with sensitivity by experienced professionals, great harm could be done to both girls and, by extension, the entire family.

Given that the illegal removal of the girls has been perpetrated with the tacit approval of AusAID, I believe it would be appropriate for AusAID to do all it can to see to it that an appropriate re-integration program is instituted by qualified professionals. Such a program should be laid out in writing so that everyone involved in the delicate process is aware of their rights and responsibilities – Chanti and Chhork, Citipointe church, the Global Development Group and myself.

best wishes

James Ricketson

Rosa and Chita's healthy and very happy youngest sister, Poppy

# 45 Still trying, after five years, to get hold of a copy of the 2008 MOU from Pastor Leigh Ramsey!

Leigh Ramsey

322 Wecker Road

Carindale

QLD 4152                                                                                          

26^th 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 31^st 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 25^th 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 21^st 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 31^st 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 4^th March – a letter which, of course, has resulted in no response at all.

best wishes

James Ricketson

# 44 A letter for the Judge who tried me in absentia

Investigating Judge

Phnom Penh Municipal Court                                                           

26^th March 2014

Dear Judge

I learnt two weeks ago through a newspaper article, whilst I was in Australia, that Citipointe has brought charges against me, under Article 372 of the Criminal Code. It seems, from what I have read,  Citipointe alleges that I attempted to blackmail the church in March 2013.

May I bring the following to your attention:

(1) I have not been served with a warrant or summons in relation to these charges.

(2) I did not know that there was a court hearing taking place whilst I was in Australia.

(3) Despite what the newspapers say I am not a ‘fugitive’. I have come back to Cambodia to find out what I have been charged with and am staying at the above address – the Europe Guest House.

(4) I have been presented with no documents at all in relation to this matter and so am ignorant of the date on which I supposedly attempted to ‘blackmail’ Citipointe church or the words I allegedly wrote in the ‘blackmail’ attempt.

Could you please supply me with

(1) A summons or warrant in relation to these charges.

(2) A summary of the charges that have been laid by Citipointe, including the date when I allegedly attempted to blackmail the church and the precise words I used.

(3) Information relating to the date upon which the next hearing will be held. I have learnt from the newspaper that the date is 2^nd April. Is this correct?

For your information, Citipointe church illegally removed two children from their family in July 2008. Citipointe claims that its removal of the children (Rosa and Chita) was legal as a result of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) the church entered into with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  For five years now the church has refused to supply the parents (Yem Chanthy and Both Chhork) with a copy of this MOU. The church has refused to supply LICADHO or myself with a copy of the MOU.

Before this matter can proceed any further, the church must produce a copy of the MOU to prove that it had a legal right to remove Rosa and Chita and to detain them against the wishes of their parents – Yem Chanthy and Both Chhork - in 2008/2009.

If Citipointe cannot produce a copy of the MOU that gave the church the legal right to remove Rosa and Chita the church is guilty of the crime of Unlawful Removal. I refer to:

Article 8 of Cambodia’s 2008 Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation:

Definition of Unlawful Removal

The act of unlawful removal in this law shall mean to:

1) remove a person from his/her current place of residence to a place

under the actor’s or a third person’s control by means of force,

threat, deception, abuse of power, or enticement, or

2) without legal authority or any other legal justification to do so, take a minor or a person under general custody or curatorship or legal custody away from the legal custody of the parents, care taker or guardian.

I trust that the court will provide me with he information I have requested above as soon as possible. I trust also that the court will insist that a representative on Citipointe church be in court to explain why these charges have been laid against me.

best wishes

James Ricketson

# 43 Money laundering, the Christian Mafia, and an email to ‘the Black Bitch’ (Part Two)

...continued on from 'Money laundering, the Christian Mafia, and an email to 'the black bitch' (Part One)

So, where does ‘the black bitch’ fit into the Christian Mafia story ? Who is the ‘black bitch’?

The following anecdote is a little off-topic but not so far off that I need to make too many excuses for including it here. It is a story well known within the NGO community and the subject of plenty of hushed cocktail banter. You will not read about in the newspapers, however, for reasons that will become apparent.

I cannot mention either the name of the NGO (a household name) or the name of the central character in the anecdote (another household name) because both are extremely litigious and would have a gaggle of lawyers descend on me like a ton of bricks if I mentioned them. The Christian Mafia does not want its dirty linen washed in public.

It is a story that touches on the foolishness of hitting the ‘reply’ button when sending an email without checking to see precisely whom you are replying to. It is also a story that highlights the arrogance of NGO’s untroubled by the precepts of transparency and accountability to be found prominently displayed on their websites; NGOs who are Lords of their multi-million dollar empires, subject to no independent external monitoring or assessment; laws unto themselves.

The story is long. I will cut to the chase. A black former employee of this particular NGO found herself involved in a minor dispute with it about the level of pay she was entitled to if she were to be re-employed by the NGO. An arrogant woman by all accounts who felt that she was entitled to a higher wage and a more elevated position within the heirarchy than the NGO was offering.

In the course of this minor dispute the CEO of this particular NGO sent an email to someone else within the NGO in which he referred to the former employee as a ‘black bitch’. Alas, he copied this email to the ‘black bitch’ herself! You can guess what happened next. Yes,  he was sued. It cost his NGO $70,000 to keep this out of the courts, out of the public eye and to enable business as usual to proceed with no-one the wiser apart from those in the NGO world who were privy to it or heard about it on the grape vine. That $70,000 to keep this man’s name off the front pages of newspapers was made up of small tax-deductible donations made by Australians who believe, because this NGO has a huge marketing department, that does it only good work around the world and is as pure as driven snow.

The stories about this man’s doltish behavior are legion but, as I mentioned earlier, you will never hear of them because the NGO he heads up (also in the business of saving souls for Jesus Christ) is notoriously litigious. The fatal combination of Spin Doctors, lawyers and a huge marketing section guarantees that the general public will never know what actually goes on in this or any other cashed-up NGO.

Indeed, the Sultans of Spin employed by the Christian Mafia will go to extraordinary lengths to keep you, the generous donor or sponsor, laboring under major illusions (delusions!) as to how your tax-deductible dollars are being spent. If you have made a donation to Citipointe church or to the Global Development Group some part of your  tax-deductible dollar is now going towards paying the lawyers and Spin Doctors who have been employed to break my legs. I am speaking metaphorically, of course. They do not want to break my legs. They want me in jail. They want me banned from coming to Cambodia again. They want me to shut up and not say out loud what everyone in Cambodia knows – that too many of the Christian NGOs in Cambodia are there to proselytize, to rescue Buddhist children from their heathen parents and turn them into God-fearing Christians convinced that their parents will be going to Hell for engaging in Buddhist ceremonies, for having Buddhist beliefs rather than accepting Jesus Christ as their Saviour. And, please excuse me for belabouring the point, but these human rights abuses are being paid for with tax-deductible Australian dollars. The Christian Mafia will insist otherwise but any and everyone associated with the NGO world in Cambodia knows that most Australian Christian NGOs are in the soul-saving business. It is contrary to AusAID rules but, if my experience is anything to go by, senior AusAID officials are either asleep at the wheel or turn a blind eye to the blatant proselytizing that takes place in Cambodia and, I suspect, in other 3^rd world countries where evangelical Christians are breaking up families and saving souls with the assistance of Australian tax dollars, despite this:

“Evangelism (also called proselytism and missionary work) is the practice of attempting to convert people to another religion or faith…Tax-deductible funds cannot be used for evangelistic purposes nor for missionary activities. Missionary activities include evangelism but also extend to activities designed to build up the knowledge and faith of believers including theological training and study of worlds of religious wisdom such as the Koran, Torah or Bible. The building and maintenance of places of worship are also ineligible.

Guidelines governing AusAID’s partnership programme with NGOs similarly exclude evangelistic activities: “Approval will not be provided for activities which subsidize evangelism or missionary outreach…” AusAID funds must be used “to assist in strengthening an organization’s or a community’s development capacity of socio-economic situation…” and not to strengthen the ‘religious witness’ of a church or religious organization.

Under the very specific sub-heading of ‘Evangelical Activities’ the explanatory notes state: “AusAID and NGOs recognize and agree that AusAID funds are not to be used for programming that is designed to convert people from one religious faith or denomination to another or from one political persuasion to another. Nor should AusAID funds be used to build up church ecclesiastical or political structures except in circumstances where those structures are specifically designed to provide relief and/or development assistance. In this context, church, ecclesiastical and political structures include not just infrastructure, but could extend to training or organizational activities.”

# 42 Money laundering, the Christian Mafia, and an email to ‘the Black Bitch’ (Part One)

Money laundering (traditional):

“The process whereby the proceeds of crime are transformed into ostensibly legitimate money or other assets.”

Money laundering (Christian evangelical): 

“The process whereby legitimate money from tax-deductible donations finances the crime of child-stealing.”

Make a tax-deductible donation to an Evangelical Christian NGO in the business of ‘rescuing’ children in the third world and there’s a high probability that this money will go to the break-up of their family, to the indoctrination of the child into the NGO’s particular brand of the Christian faith and to alienation of the child from her family (nuclear and extended), her culture and her traditions.

Genocide without bloodshed. Financed with Australian tax-deductible dollars!

So it is that well-meaning Australian donors and sponsors get a warm inner glow from having helped ‘the poor’ in the third world whilst in reality being complicit in multiple human rights abuses.

There are good NGOs and bad NGOs. Tara Winkler’s ‘Cambodian Children’s Trust’ is a good NGO. Tara understands that it is essential to help materially poor and disadvantaged children within a family and community context.  Citipointe’s  ‘SHE Rescue Home’ is a bad NGO – not just because of the way in which the church acquires girls like Rosa and Chita (fraud), not just because it exploits these girls for financial gain (pretending that they are ‘victims of human trafficking’) and not just because the church is involved in the indoctrination of these girls into Citipointe’s warped version of the Christian faith but because Citipointe believes that the breaking up of Cambodian Buddhist families is essential if the daughters of these families are to be recued from the Hell that awaits their parents for having not accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour!

The problem is that the bad NGOs like Citipointe’s ‘SHE Rescue Home’ can break Cambodian law with impunity, can breach the Code of Conduct they have signed up for with Australian Council for International Development and be unaccountable Lords of the little empires they create for themselves in corrupt dictatorships such as the one that prevails in Cambodia. And who is going to call them to account? The answer, unfortunately, is no-one.

If you dare to say out loud what all in the non-denominational NGO community in Cambodia speak about in hushed tones you will have the Christian Mafia on your back - a mafia that will, like all mafias, use any and every ploy it can to discredit you, to shut you up – threats of defamations suits, threats to have you arrested and jailed, accusations of profiting from prostitution, posting porn on the internet and most recently (in my case) the charge that I have blackmailed a member of the Mafia (Citipointe church) by threatening to defame it.

The fact that there is no evidence in support of Citipointe’s charge is not a problem in Cambodia – where evidence, facts, the truth are of little consequence in court proceedings. As for the issuing of warrants, summonses, providing the accused with evidence of his crimes, these are details the Cambodian judiciary dispenses with when its client is a member of the cashed up Christian Mafia.

All this would be laughable if it were not for the fact that this Christian Mafia  honestly believes that it is acting in the best interests of the children it steals and indoctrinates into whatever brand of the Christian faith it is that the mafia member NGO practices. The parents of these children are, after all, Buddhist heathens, ‘non-believers’ who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior! The CM is doing the children a huge favour in rescuing them from the hell into which their parents will be pitched upon death. Yes, a literal hell. The Pentecostals believe that God has set aside a fiery burning Hell as the final resting place for non-believers such as…such as The Dalai Lama…

The Christian Mafia behaves in this way in the 3^rd world because it can get away with it. And make money in the process. Third world countries usually have corrupt officials in high places that can be paid to turn a blind eye to breaches of the host  country’s laws. And there are plenty of poor parents whose desperate need to find food to put in the bellies of their hungry children will go along with whatever nonsense these God-botherers spout.

“You want me to speak in tongues? No problem, if that’s what I need to do to fed my kids.”

If I could not feed my kids, if I desperately wanted them to have the education I missed out on as a result of my poverty, I’d become a Pentecostal too, allow my kids to become Pentecostals. But if this particular sub-branch of the Christian Mafia tried to take my kids away as Citipointe did -  by lies, deceit, stealth, fraudulent contracts etc - I’d do what Chanti did: kidnap my own daughter. When Chanti ‘kidnapped’ Rosa from the church that had stolen her, Citipointe called the police – who then, obligingly ‘rescued’ Rosa, aged six, from her mother. That Citipopinte had no legal right to have removed Rosa in the first place is a detail of no interest to Cambodian police. The reality is that the police in 3^rd world countries are badly paid and do the bidding of rich and powerful NGOs. (Chanti’s ‘punishment’ for having ‘kidnapped’ her own daughter was to have her visitation rights reduced to 2 hours per month, or 24 hours per annum. Five years later, Chanti and Chhork’s visitation rights are close to zero.)

If it were not Pentecostals stealing children from poor Cambodian families, but Pimps tricking the parents into giving up their daughters and selling them into prostitution, all hell would break loose. There would be a mad rush of NGOs in falling over themselves to be first in line to rescue the kids from the sex trade. If it is just Pentecostals stealing children well, that’s OK, because, you know, Christians are good people who have the best interests of children at heart. And, hey, surely these kids are better off getting three meals a day in a Christian Mafia institution than being malnourished in the village their family and community lives in? Right?

Wrong. If the Christian Mafia was working in accordance with true Christian values it would be helping not just the children of poor parents but the parents themselves, the extended family, the community. A truly Christian Mafia would recognize the sanctity of the family and the value of building strong ties between the families and their communities such that they can become self-sufficient and no longer in need of the aid that the Christian Mafia is offering.  The aim of these Christians is not self-sufficiency, of course but winning souls for Jesus Christ. And we, in Australia, support this indoctrination of Buddhist children into the Christian faith though tax-donated dollars given to Citipointe church and other Christian NGOs.

I doubt very much that a compassionate loving God has too much interest in whether or not the people receiving aid from NGOs are Pentecostals or not. A truly loving compassionate God would applaud the generosity of spirit that even a non-believing Heathen – Muslims, Hindus, Jews etc - might manifest with his or her actions in helping the poor and dispossessed. (Tara Winkler, for instance.)

The God of the Pentecostals is a mercurial egomaniacal sadist who punishes (into eternity)  those who refuse to bow before him and acknowledge Him as the only deity worthy of respect and worship. And He gives the Pentecostals a blank cheque to make as much money as possible in the process, so that this money can be used in other parts of the 3^rd world to break up families  and deliver young souls into the bosom of his boundless love!

There are, of course, many good NGOs – NGOs that actually do, in the real world, on the ground, in communities, what they claim in their glossy brochures and online to be doing to alleviate poverty. (again, Tara Winker’s ‘Cambodian Children’s Trust’ is a shining example). At the other end of the scale there are those who, realizing how easy it is to fool big-hearted donors and sponsors, take full advantage of the free-for-all that is the Cambodian NGO industry to milk it for what it is worth. Citipointe church fits into this latter category – stealing the daughters of materially poor Cambodians and presenting them to donors and sponsors as ‘victims of human trafficking’.

“Be careful, James, you can’t write that,” I can hear my friends cautioning me. “Citipointe will sue you.”  “No, they won’t,” is my usual reply, “, at least not in Australia because a defamation suit would draw public attention to the church’s scam. A defamation suit would also result in the church being obliged, in an Australian court of law, to provide evidence that they acquired custody of Rosa and Chita legally. And the church did not. Citipointe knows it did not. The Global Development Group (funding Citipointe’s proselytizing activities in contravention of AusAID rules and the ACFID Code of Conduct) knows that it did not. The Australian Embassy (and hence DFAT) knows that it did not. The Australian Council for International Development knows that it did not. The minister for Foreign Affairs knows that it did not (or should know) but in true Emperor’s New Clothes style all are maintaining their silence in the vain hope that the caravan will pass and the barking dog, me, will be barking impotently into the night sky.” If none of the above actually ask to see the MOU that gave Citipointe the legal right to remove the children, all can plausibly claim in the future, when the truth comes out (as it will) that they did not know. At this point the matter will be handed over to the Spin Doctors to absolve all those responsible for turning a blind eye to this child stealing to appear blameless.

Such is the world we now live in – a commitment to transparency and accountability being nothing more or less than slogans spouted by Spin Doctors in the vain hope that we stupid members of the Australian public will buy whatever nonsense they feed to us.

And so it is that Citipointe church has arranged to have me tried in Cambodia in absentia (last week) and for my sentencing to occur on 2^nd April. The problem confronting the church is this: “Which serves our purposes best – to see James jailed and banned from coming to Cambodia any more or to do all we can to see to it that he does not receive a custodial sentence?”

…to be continued…