# 41 Global Development Group complicit in the illegal removal and detention of Rosa and Chita in 2008?

Chita (left) and Rosa (right) - young members of the new Cambodian 'Stolen Generation' seen here with their mother, Chanti, during a rare home visit in 2013.

The Hon Julie Bishop

Minister for Foreign Affairs

House of Representatives, Parliament House


Canberra ACT 2600                                                                           

19^th March 2014

Dear Minister

It would seem my letters have been relegated to the ‘Too Hard’ basket or, perhaps, ‘Of No Interest’ basket. Perhaps because the children that were illegally removed by Citipointe in 2008 are Buddhist, brown-skinned and poor and their parents do not live in a marginal seat! As for the church that illegally removed the children, they are fair-skinned Australian Christians who vote and may even be financial contributors to the Liberal Party!

Please excuse my cynicism but it is pretty much the only response available to me when no-one from the Minister of Foreign Affairs down is prepared to ask Citipointe to produce a copy of the MOU that the church claims gave it the legal right to remove the daughters of materially poor Cambodians from their families in mid-2008.  

Why, given the simplicity of the action required (photocopy/scan and send) has it not been possible, despite five years of asking, for the parents (Chanti and Chhork) to acquire a copy of the MOU?  The answer is simple: there is no MOU that gave the church the rights it  exercised in 2008. Citipointe has broken Cambodian law. Simple as that.

More importantly, in the present context, is the question:

“Why has no-one from your office, no-one from AusAID, no-one from the Australian Council for International Development asked Citipointe church to produce a copy of this 2008 MOU?”

Could it be that if the church is never asked to produce it, those who should have asked for it (your own office included) can claim with some plausibility, when the truth comes out (as it will), they had no idea that Citipointe had, in accordance with Cambodian law, illegally removed the girls.

On the other hand, if Citipointe is asked for a copy of the MOU and it becomes apparent that the church had no legal right of removal, a veritable Pandora’s Box of questions arise which could be summed up as:

“Why, this past five years, has Citipointe church been able to get away with the illegal removal of Cambodian children in 2008 when Mr Ricketson, on behalf of the parents (Chanti and Chhork) has been pointing out the illegality of the church’s actions in dozens of letters?”

I imagine that a gaggle of DFAT and AusAID Spin Doctors may be able to turn this sow’s ear into a silk purse but it would not be an easy task.

best wishes

James Ricketson

# 40 Letter to Hon Julie Bishop, Australia's Foreign Minister, dated 17th March 2014

The Hon Julie Bishop

Minister for Foreign Affairs

House of Representatives, Parliament House


Canberra ACT 2600

17^th March 2014

Dear Minister

It is only three days since I last wrote to you but, just as three days can be a long time in politics, so can it be in the life of an investigative journalist. Each day new facts emerge, new leads to be followed reveal themselves. Over the weekend, for instance, allegations have been made that a young woman was raped by Brett Cowan, killer of Daniel Morecombe. And what church was Brett Cowan attending on the Sunshine coast at the time? The Christian Outreach Centre. And who started this church? Pastor Leigh Ramsey and her husband, Mark. And what was the reaction of the Christian Outreach Centre to the Brett Cowan rape allegation? To cover it up. Were Pastors Leigh Ramsey and her husband involved in this alleged cover-up? I have no idea at this point. It is an avenue to be explored.

There is a certain amount of urgency in getting answers to the questions I have asked you, given that Citipoint church has arranged for me to be tried in absentia in Cambodia and for me to be sentenced on 2^nd July. I still do not know what the charges are and no evidence has been presented to me in support of them. I not informed by summons or warrant that I was due in court last week – such details being of no consequence when rich and powerful interests of the kind that Citipointe represent bring their influence to bear on the Cambodian judicial system.

However, were a copy of the MOU that Citipointe maintains the church entered into with the Cambodian ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2008 were to appear, and were it to be found that it did not give Citipointe the right to remove Rosa and Chita, this would be a game-changer. It would be abundantly apparent that Citipointe had broken Cambodian law and that Pastor Leigh Ramsey and her co-conspirators should be charged in accordance with Article 9 of Cambodia’s ‘Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation’.

Public exposure of Citipointe’s criminality would be hugely embarrassing to the church and to the Global Development Group but the church will never be charged in Cambodia because of the special arrangement that exists between Citipointe’s Nicole Roberts (along with her husband, Troy) and the Cambodian police. It is Nicole Roberts who had made accusations about me on 30^th Oct 2012 (in the total absence of any evidence) that led to my conversation with Judge Phou Pov Sun a couple of weeks ago. For more information about Nicole Roberts’ relationship with the police, go to:

http://rawimpact.org/ourprojects

There is, of course, no MOU that gives Citpointe and the Global Development Gropup the legal right to remove children as the church did in 2008. What Citipointe will present, if pressed, is an MOU the church entered into with the Cambodian Ministry of Social Affairs in Nov 2009 – 16 months after Rosa and Chita were removed. In Cambodia, of course, retrospective permission to steal children is easy to organize – as is any and every human rights abuse an NGO chooses to engage in. And do the parents, Chanti and Chhork, have a copy of this Nov 2009 MOU? No, of course not. This is Cambodia. The fate of their daughters is none of their business. Their futures are to be determined by men and women sitting around a table in a board room in Brisbane, in conjunction with corrupt public servants in the Cambodian government and with the tacit approval of incompetent public servants within AusAID and the Australian Council for International Development.

In defense of corrupt Cambodian public servants they are corrupt because the whole society is. There is no way that anyone can survive under the corrupt regime that is the supposedly democratic Hun Sen government, without being corrupt. A Judge can’t live on his official wage and needs to have it topped up. The police can’t live on their official wage and need to top it up. School teachers can’t survive of their official wage and need to top it up with contributions made each day from students – contributions that are beyond the financial capacity of many poor Cambodians. Then there are the garment factors workers who can’t survive on $95 a months. And what happens to them when they go on strike demanding a living wage of $160 a month - a wage acknowledged by the government is the minimum needed to survive? The army is brought in to shoot to kill. And which country provides substantial military aid to Cambodia. Right, Australia does. In fact, this year, Australia will contribute around $100 million to the propping up of this corrupt dictatorship.

Quite apart from the illegality of Citipointe’s removal of Rosa and Chita from their family, there is the question of these girls’ indoctrination into Citipointe’s particular brand of Petecostalism. Some relevant quotes:

“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.”

A few months after Citipointe church stole Rosa and Chita from their family, the church gave the enclosed photo to Chanti and Chhork. This was at a time when Citipointe was relying on its fraudulent 31^st. July 2008 ‘contract’ to justify the legality of its actions. This was at a time when Rebecca Brewer was telling both the parents and myself, on the basis of this fraudulent document, that Rosa and Chita would stay with the church until they were 18. This photo, of young Rosa displaying her silver cross to the Citipointe photographer, was intended to send Chanti and Chhork a strong message. “Rosa is no longer your daughter. She is ours. She is no longer a Buddhist, she is a young Pentecostal.”

Citipointe church  should be stripped of its tax-deductible status. So should the Global Development Group – complicit in this child-stealing scam. There should be a totally independent investigation into how and why it is that NGOs with such obvious religious agendas are able to proselytize in Cambodia and other 3^rd world countries. Such an investigation cannot be carried out by the Australian Council for International Development as this organization has revealed itself to be deeply compromised and incapable of arriving at conclusions based on facts and evidence.

best wishes

James Ricketson

# 39 letter to Global Development Group lawyer, Billie Jean Slott, dated 16th March 2014

James Ricketson

316 Whale Beach Road

Palm Beach 2108

Sydney, Australia

jamesricketson@gmail.com

Billie Jean Slott

Legal Advisor

Sciaroni and Associates No 24, Street 462

Sangkat, Tonle Bassac

Phnom Penh                                                                

16^th  March 2014

Dear Billie Jean

It is now 17 days since I received your Feb 28th email.

Eternal optimist that I am, I held out hope that you might be genuinely interested in ‘the truth’ about how it was that Citipointe church acquired custody of Rosa and Chita in 2008. In my naivety I thought you might look at the facts, the evidence (a lawyers’ job, surely!) and realize that in July 2008, and particularly after 11^th August 2008, Citipointe had no legal rights at all to be detaining Rosa and Chita contrary to the wishes of their parents.

I presumed, foolishly, that you would relay this information to the shocked and horrified Global Development Group Board that has been funding Citipointe’s ‘SHE Rescue Home’, at which point the board would respond in the only ethical way possible – to sever GDG’s ties with Citipointe church.

It is clear from the events of the past week that your job is not to seek and find the truth but to find whatever loopholes you can to justify or explain away the illegal removal of Rosa and Chita. And if that fails to use a corrupt judiciary to bring whatever pressure to bear on me that is necessary to prevent the truth from being made public. And the truth is this:

In July 2008, Citipointe church, with the blessing of the Global Development Group, illegally removed Rosa and Chita from their family.

You are now an integral part of (maybe even a necessary of driving part of) a conspiracy of silence surrounding the 2008 Memorandum of Understanding that Citipointe church claims to have entered into with the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. You must do whatever it takes to guarantee that this document never sees the light of day. And so, of course, must Citipointe church, the Global Development Group board, the Australian Council for International Development,  AusAID and the Department of Foreign Affairs. The release of this MOU would reveal the illegal nature of Citipointe’s removal, the complicity of GDG and the incompetence of senior personnel in AusAID and DFAT who, if they had been doing their job properly, would have exposed Citipointe’s scam years ago.

There is no 2008 MOU that gives Citipointe the right to remove children from their families without the parents’ consent. You will and must agree on this by now as you have read the MOU. But there is another MOU, isn’t there – one that you have seen a copy of but which Chanti and Chhork have been denied access to. This is the Nov 2009 MOU that Citipointe entered into with the Cambodian Ministry of Social Affairs.

I have not seen this document and know nothing of its contents. I have no idea what justification Citipointe was providing to MoSAVY for the continued detention of Rosa and Chita at a time when Chanti and Chhork had a home (a houseboat) and two income streams – these indisputable facts recorded by my camera in Nov 2009.

More importantly, nor do Chanti and Chhork have any idea of the contents of this MOU. They have no idea why MoSAVY thought, in Nov 2009, that their home was not a fit place for their children to live. They have no idea what, if any, their rights of appeal were/are regarding this decision made by MoSAVY. They had no idea  then, and have no idea now, what they needed to do to get their daughters back. The only certainties in their lives were that Citipointe kept (a) promising that their daughters would be returned soon and, when this did not happen over a period of years (b) that it was up to MsSAVY to decide when re-integration was possible or desirable. Given that no-one from MoSAVY ever visited Chanti and Chhork to see how they were faring, Citipointe could continue with its scam for as long as it liked. And it has – for close on 6 years now.

My question for you, Billie Jean, is both a legal and an ethical one:

“Between 11^th August 2008 and Nov 2009 -  a period of 16 months – did Citipointe church have a legal right to be detaining Rosa and Chita against the express wishes of their parents, Chanti and Chhork?”

I am not a lawyer, but I am also not a fool. Clearly Citipointe had no such right between 31^st July 2008 and Nov 2009. The Cambodian law that should have applied to Citipointe’s actions at that time is Article 8 Cambodia’s ‘Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation’.

Article 8:Definition of Unlawful Removal

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

1)      Remove a person from his/her current place of residence to a place under the actor’s or a third persons 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 to take a minor person under general custody or curatoship or legal custody away from the legal custody of the parents, care taker or guardian.

You know, as a lawyer, that the means whereby Citipointe  got Chanti to put her thumb print on the fraudulent 31^st. July 2008 ‘contract’ in order to remove Rosa and Chita involved “deception, abuse of power or enticement.” One element of this deception involved telling Chanti that it was LICADHO she was entering into an agreement with. Chanti knew of LICADHO and had no reason to distrust what she knew to be a human rights organization.

You know, as a lawyer, that Article 9 of Cambodia’s ‘Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation’ is quite clear as to what the punishment for “deception, abuse of power or enticement”  is:

Article 9: Unlawful removal, inter alia, of Minor

A person who unlawfully removes a minor or a person under general custody or curatorship or legal custody shall be punished with imprisonment for 2 to 5 years.

If the Cambodian courts were administering Cambodian law (as opposed to NGO law) Pastor Leigh Ramsey, Rebecca Brewer and Helen Shields would be in court and facing possible 2 – 5 year jail sentences of ‘unlawful removal’. They will not be. It will be me who is in court facing the accusation that I have blackmailed Citipointe by threatening to make public the illegality of the church’s actions. And you are now part and parcel of this use of a corrupt Cambodian judiciary to prevent the truth about Citipointe from emerging.

Given that the Global Development Group is implicated in this unlawful removal it is now imperative that the GDG board find some way of spinning GDG’s complicity in this crime in such a way as to shut me up, shut me down, do whatever it takes to discredit me. And so, enter Billie Jean Slott. “”Billie Jean, what can we do?” I can hear the GDG board asking. Well, one thing that can be done is to charge me with attempting to blackmail Citipointe, make sure that no summons or warrant is served on me, make sure that I am not appraised of the contents and that I am not in the country and hope that my non-appearance in court will be viewed as either an admission of guilt or as contempt of court. Then, just as this legal farce has been arranged by Citipointe and GDG, it is likewise easy to arrange whatever sentence you might think appropriate to shut me up, to shut me down.

There are at least two possible outcomes on 2^nd April. One is a custodial sentence for myself. This would not really suit GDG’s purposes, however, as it would draw attention to the criminality of Citipointe church’s actions in a way that Global Development Group desperately wants to be kept from public view. Stealing the brown-skinned children of materially poor Cambodians is one thing; arranging for the arrest and jailing of a white Anglo-Saxon Australia is something quite different. Questions would be asked.

The other alternative is for Citipointe/GDG to arrange with the Cambodian judge to have the matter quietly dropped. This would result in the media having no further interest in Citipointe’s criminality and probably only writing a small story, buried deep in newspapers. The caravan would move on and it would be back to business as usual for Citipointe and GDG.

If I were advising Citipointe /GDG I would be suggesting this latter option. The only danger inherent in it is that there may be a journalist who smells a rat and continues to ask Citipointe/GDG to produce the MOU from 2008. Your job then, I guess, would be to find ways of not producing the document – wearing the intrepid journalist down until s/he gives up. Your mission accomplished, the Global Development Group could then dispense with your services until such time as another filmmaker/journalist starts to ask difficult questions and needs to be shut down.

My hopes that you might be a lawyer with integrity have been dashed, Billie Jean. You have certainly found the right country to be practicing in!

best wishes

James Ricketson

# 38 A 'defamatory' letter for the Hon Julie Bishop, Foreign Minister, dated 14th March 2014

The Hon Julie Bishop

Minister for Foreign Affairs

House of Representatives, Parliament House


Canberra ACT 2600

14^th March 2014

Dear Minister

On 12^th March, on the same day that I wrote to you, on the same day that I wrote the enclosed letter to Citipointe church and the Global Development Group, I was supposed to appear in court in Phnom Penh on charges that I had defamed Citipointe. I learnt this only when it was pointed out to me in a newspaper article the following day.

I was served with no summons by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, there was no warrant and I have been appraised of none of the evidence in support of the charges brought by Citipointe. This is the way the judiciary operates in Cambodia, as I am sure you are very well aware.  The defamation charge is nonsense. It is yet another attempt on the part of Citipointe church to intimidate me.

It is my intention in this letter, to defame Citipointe as effectively as I can in hopes that the church will sue me in Australia and be obliged, by the court to produce the MOU it entered into with the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It seems that only in this way, in an Australian court of law, will it be possible for Yem Chanthy (Chanti) and Both Chhork to be provided with copies of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that the church claims gave it the right to remove their daughters, Rosa and Chita, from the family in 2008.

It should not be necessary for me to be courting a defamation suit in order to force Citipointe and the Global Development Group to provide the parents with a copy of this MOU. It should be possible for someone with the authority to do so within DFAT, within AusAID to get on the phone and tell Citipointe church and the board of the Global Development Group that Chanti and Chhork have a legal and moral right to copies of the MOU and to provide them today. Both Citipointe and the GDG are able to take advantage of a tax-deductible status conferred on them by AusAID. It should be possible for AusAID to ask this question; to hold both NGOs accountable. Indeed, it should be of great concern to AusAID that Citipointe church, with the tacit approval of the Global Development Group board, has illegally removed two children from their family in Cambodia. If this is so, they have broken Cambodian law and breached the Code of Conduct of the Australian Council for International Development. If it is not so, they should be able to produce the MOU immediately; an MOU that Chanti, Chhork and myself, as their legally appointed advocate, have been asking for copies of for five years now.

Here are my ‘defamatory’ allegations.

(1) In July 2008 Pastor Leigh Ramsey, Helen Shields and Rebecca Brewer lied to Chanti and to myself about the help Citipointe church was offering to provide to the family during a financial crisis.

(2) On 31^st July 2008 Citipointe staff, pretending to be representatives of LICADHO, a Cambodian human rights organization, lied about the contents of the document they tricked Chanti and her mother into signing with their thumb point.

(3) On 11^th August 2008 Rebecca Brewer lied when, in an email to myself and in conversations with Chanti, she claimed that the 31^st July 2008 ‘contract’ gave Citipointe church the legal right to detain Rosa and Chita until they were 18.

(4) During July and August 2008 Pastor Leigh Ramsey, Helen Shields and Rebecca Brewer employed lies and deceit to illegally take custody of the children of two materially poor Cambodians. Or, to use language that might make a defamation lawyer’s job a little easier, Pastor Leigh Ramsey, Rebecca Brewer and Helen Shields knowingly, deliberately and in a conspiracy with each other, kidnapped Rosa and Chita from their parents.

(5) Over the years Pastor Leigh Ramsey has, on many occasions, promised Chanti and Chhork the imminent return of their daughters. This has never transpired. Pastor Leigh Ramsey is a liar.

(6) In my meetings with Pastor Leigh Ramsey, Rebecca Brewer and Helen Shields in July 2008, they assured that re-integration of Rosa and Chita back into the family was not only a top priority but that the church would be helping the entire family to become self-sufficient. This was a lie. In five and a half years Citipointe has not provided $1 of assistance to the family. Indeed, on a couple of occasions when Chanti has been ill, Citipointe has offered no assistance at all. The most extreme example of this lack of compassion is to be found in Feb 2013 when Chanti, 8 months pregnant, contracted pneumonia. (http://citipointechurch.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/citipointe-turns-blind-eye-to-chantis.html) Her elevated temperature posed a threat to the well-being of her soon-to-be-born baby(Poppy) but not even a potentially life-threatening scenario was going to deflect Citipointe from its determination to keep the family as poor as possible in order to be able to use this poverty as a reason to continue to detail Rosa and Chita. Let me quote from Rebecca Brewer’s email of 24^th Oct 2008:

“Regarding continued support to Chanti, we are unable to assist with distributing this sort of aid. Our focus is to assist the children in our care as needed and the work we do with the parents is limited. If we were to be seen giving handouts to one individual parent it could prove very disruptive to the rest of the community.”

This was totally contrary to what Pastor Ramsey, Helen Shields and Rebecca Brewer had told both Chanti and myself. It is also contrary to what Citipointe claims on its website.

There is another aspect of this 24^th Oct 2008 email that is of interest. At the time I was unaware of the fraudulent nature of the 31^st July 2008 ‘contract’. Ms Brewer writes:

“Regarding taking Rosa and Cheata  out for a day with their mother, unfortunately we are unable to accommodate this request. Our policies require that the children in our care remain in the custody of our staff members at all times. I’m sure you understand the need for us to maintain strict guidelines and policies to ensure the safety of all of the children in our care.”

At the time she wrote these words, Ms Brewer knew that Citipointe had no legal right to be holding Rosa and Chita and, hence, no legal right to be refusing to allow the girls to go out for the day with their mother.

(7) Citipointe church, whilst providing not $1 in financial support for the family, has exploited Rosa and Chita by presenting the girls to the world as ‘victims of human trafficking.’ This is a lie. A lie of enormous proportions – perpetrated by Citipointe to raise money for the church through donations and sponsorships. Despite its being fraudulent, the 31^st July 2008 ‘contract’ makes abundantly clear that it was poverty and not victimhood of any kind that resulted in Chanti and Chhork being offered assistance by the church.

As for Pastor Brian Mulheran, I have already referred to him as a ‘Pentecostal thug’. If this is not enough to initiate defamation proceedings, perhaps the following will make it easier for Citipointe’s lawyers. First, a quote from Pastor Mulheran’s letter of 21^st Feb 2013:

“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.”

It is statements such as this that give mafias of all different kinds their deserved reputation for intimidation – “We would hate to see your shop burn down or anything unpleasant to happen to your children!”  The clear purpose of Pastor Mulheran’s letter was to intimidate me into silence. I was interfering with the church’s child-stealing scam.

The recent flurry of legal activity in Cambodia (in the form of spurious charges brought against me by Citipointe) is making real what Pastor Mulheran threatened – namely my potential arrest, jailing and being banned from travelling to Cambodia.

Pastor Mulheran has known all along that Citipointe had no legal right to remove Rosa and Chita in 2008 and so has been part of the kidnapping and detention scam from the outset. He, Pastor Leigh Ramsey, Rebecca Brewer and Helen Shields should all be charged with whatever the appropriate charge in Australia is for deceiving Chanti into signing a fraudulent ‘contract’, lying about its contents and then using a document with no legal standing to justify the church’s continued detention of Rosa and Chita.

Please, Minister, bring this five year long running farce to an end and insist that Citipointe and the Global Development Group provide Chanti, Chhork and myself with a copy of the MOU the church insists gave it the right to as it did in 2008. It is not appropriate that tax-deductible Australian dollars be used to break up families and to indoctrinate children into the Christian faith.

If Citipointe and the Global Development Group cannot demonstrate, by producing the MOU, that the church was acting legally in 2008, the tax-deductible status of both NGOs should be terminated by AusAID. If Citipointe and the Global Development Group can demonstrate the legality of the church’s removal of Rosa and Chita in 2008 I expect to hear from their lawyers in the not-too-distant future.

best wishes

James Ricketson