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 3rd 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 3rd 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 3rd 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 2nd 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…
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