The Hon Julie Bishop
Minister for Foreign Affairs
House of Representatives, Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Dear Minister
My apologies for writing yet another letter to you. It should not be necessary. Others should have answered my question by now. They have not. They refuse to do so. I hope that you can. It requires only a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer:
“Do parents in a third world country whose children have been removed from their care by an AusAID approved Australian NGO have a right to be provided with a copy of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that the NGO claims to have entered into with the relevant government department in the country in which the NGO is working and in which both the parents and their removed children live?”
If the answer is ‘no’ could you please explain under what circumstances or for what reason AusAID and DFAT believe parents should be kept in the dark as why their children have been removed? More importantly, in accordance with what AusAID of DFAT guidelines can they be kept in the dark about whether the removal of their children was even legal in terms of the laws of country in which the removal took place?
If, in accordance with DFAT/AusAID guidelines, parents are entitled to be provided with copies of any and all documents relating to the removal of their children, let me bring the following to your attention in the simplest way I can.
(1) Brisbane-based Citipointe church runs an NGO in Cambodia by the name of the ‘SHE Rescue Home’. In 2008, contrary to the express wishes of the parents, the church permanently removed their two eldest daughters from their family. The church claims that its actions were in accordance with an MOU Citipointe had entered into with the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For 5 years Citipointe has refused to provide the parents with a copy of the MOU.
(2) Brisbane-based NGO, the Global Development Group (GDG), provides funding to the ‘SHE Rescue Home.’ The Executive Director of GDG, Mr Geoff Armstrong, admits that GDG is in possession of a copy of the MOU that the parents have been trying to acquire a copy of for five years. Geoff Armstrong and the GDG board have refused several requests that the parents be provided with copies of the MOU.
(3) On the parents’ behalf I have made enquiries to the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) re lodging a complaint about the refusal of Citipointe and the GDG to provide them with a copy of the MOU that gave Citipointe the right to remove the children. Despite a dozen letters to the President of ACFID, Ms Sam Mostyn, it has not been possible to get from the organization an answer to the simple question that begins this letter:
“Do parents in a third world country whose children have been removed from their care by an AusAID approved Australian NGO have a right to be provided with a copy of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that the NGO claims to have entered into with the relevant government department in the country in which the NGO is working and in which both the parents and their removed children live?”
Ms Mostyn refuses to answer this question, leaving it to an ACFID Spin Doctor (Chris Adams) and his boss (Marc Purcell) to find ways to not answer the question whilst, in the parallel Alice in Wonderland world of spin, creating the illusion that they are, in fact, providing answers. (No one believes or takes seriously Spin Doctors anymore, Minister. Why on earth do politicians and bureaucrats of all political stripes continue to treat the electorate as if we are all morons who will fall for the nonsense Spin Doctors spin?)
So, to summarize, Citipointe, the Global Development Group and ACFID do not believe that parents in a 3rd world country have a right to be provided with copies of any documentation relating to the removal of their children by Australian NGOs funded by tax-deductible Australian dollars.
Do you, Minister, believe that the parents have a right to be provided with copies of any and all documents relating to the removal of their children? All that is required is a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.
If the answer is ‘yes’, could you please request of the Global Development Group and Citipointe church (AusAID approved NGOs) that they provide the parents in this instance – Yem Chanthy and Both Chhork - with copies of all the contracts, agreements, MOUs relating to the removal of their children and their detention for the past five years.
Australian NGOs, particularly those run by Pentecostal Christians, have taken the discredited form of social engineering that led to a ‘stolen generation’ of Aboriginal children and are applying it in Cambodia – tricking parents into giving up their children, breaking up families, forcing the children to become Pentecostals and refusing to allow them much (if any) contact with their siblings, their mothers and fathers, their communities, their culture or the Buddhist religion practiced by their family. As if this were not bad enough, this alienation of children from their families and culture is being funded by Australian tax-deductible dollars.
If this practice if not stopped, a time will come, perhaps when genuine democracy arrives in Cambodia, when this new ‘stolen generation’ of Cambodian children, adults now, will take out a class action suit against the Australian government for aiding and abetting these illegal removals of children from their families.
Please do not hand this letter to a Spin Doctor whose job it will be to find some creative way of not answering my simple and twice asked question. A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ will suffice at this point.
best wishes
James Ricketson
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