Friday, December 5, 2014

# 59 Does Terres des Homme, having invested €1.600.000 in APLE, understand the NGO's modus operandi and business model?

Dear Terres des Hommes

In December last year you donated €1.600.000 to an NGO by the name of Actions Pour les Enfants (APLE) to expand its activities in Laos, Nepal, Indonesia & Philippines.

I wonder if you are aware of APLE’s modus operandi? Can you rest assured that APLE is functioning in accordance with the laws of the countries in which the NGO operates? Does APLE respect the human and legal rights of the men the NGO investigates and plays a major role in prosecuting? Does APLE respect the human and legal rights of the alleged victims of sexual abuse in 3rd world countries? Does APLE make promises of financial rewards to poor families if they will press charges against innocent men?

These are questions that Terres des Hommes should be asking. I do not expect you to take my word for anything. I do not expect you to necessarily believe anything I write but I do expect you to ask some questions and be satisfied, having asked them, with the answers.

I am a writer and filmmaker and stumbled into my own investigations of APLE by chance. And it is my chance discovery that may provide Terres des Hommes with a good place to start in the asking of questions.

A British man by the name of David Fletcher was tried, in absentia, and sentenced to 10 years in jail for raping a 17 year old Cambodian woman by the name of Yang Dany. The case was heard in secret. David Fletcher was not in Cambodia when it occurred. APLE provided legal representation to the ‘victim’ – Yang Dany.

Four years later, more by chance than by design, I came upon the doctor’s report prepared for the court that sentenced Mr Fletcher to 10 years in jail for rape. The doctor’s report made it clear that Yang Dany’s hymen was intact; that she had not been raped. When I tracked down Yang Dany she admitted to me, on camera and in front of two other journalists, that David Fletcher had not raped her.

I need write no more. This should be sufficient to raise some questions. I have attached a detail of one small part of the doctor’s report but can provide you with a copy of the entire report if you so wish.

I have written in some detail about this case should you wish to know more. This can be found at:

http://cambodia440.blogspot.com.au

You can also access the interviews I conducted with Yang Dany and her mother, Kheang Sekun, and make your own assessment as to whether mother and daughter are telling the truth. These can be found at:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqHpFO0cauc

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU9zpkYMCEo

These interviews are, for the most part, comprised of uncut footage. I did not want to be left open to the accusation that I had edited the footage to manipulate the viewer in any way.

My most recent blog post, a letter to Thierry Darnaudet, speaks for itself. The first comment I received in response to it is interesting and I quote it below. I do not know the extent to which this comment can be relied upon for factual accuracy but it certainly raises a whole host of questions for me – particularly in light of the fact that so many similar observations about APLE have been made by others over the years.

Where there is smoke there is not necessarily fire but I would suggest, if I may be so bold, that Terres des Hommes should investigate the various sources of smoke and assure itself that it has not provided APLE with a substantial amount of money that will be used to jail innocent men in order to not only justify the €1.600.000 but to provide APLE with the kind of impressive arrest and prosecution rates that will enable the NGO to come back to Terres des Hommes next year with a request for a further €1.600.000.

Take all I write with a huge grain of salt but please start to ask questions.

I am copying this to a large number of others who have an interest in this matter or who should, I believe, have an interest in it but who have chosen to turn a blind eye.

yours sincerely

James Ricketson

COMMENT REGARDING APLE

“About APLE paying court officials . . . Unless you have evidence that they do, according to my information they don't.
When APLE would start paying the courts, it would make them vulnerable. The price would go up every case and at the end APLE would not be able to win any.

APLE has other ways to influence the court. They have strong diplomatic connections with some of the embassies, especially the British, Australian and US embassies.

APLE turns to them when a case cannot be won based on evidence. They tell the embassies a case might be lost and a dangerous sex offender is about to walk free as a result of corruption (the accused bribed the court or paid the victim). APLE presents the embassies with their own fabricated 'evidence' and asks the embassies to help prevent the dangerous sex offender to walk free.

The embassies get involved and contact the Cambodian Ministry of Interior, the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Cambodian Ministry of Justice, pressuring them by saying that a lot of foreign aid programs will be frozen when this sex offender is to walk free.

For judges in Cambodia it's not uncommon to receive phone calls from higher up, ordering the judge to hand out a guilty verdict and a high sentence, as we've seen in the case of Giuseppe Nicolosi and many anti-government protesters.

APLE loves Australian, US & British 'Sex Offenders', because there's a 100% guilty guarantee. I don't know any case where an accused Australian, US or UK citizen was NOT found guilty.

These 3 countries are also actively involved in assisting APLE in the process of 'collecting evidence'. The mysterious disappearance of David's passport is just one example on how well the CEOPS assists in 'collecting evidence'. All this is a result of the mass hysteria when it comes to child sexual abuse that dominates especially these 3 native English speaking cultures. It satisfies the false felling of safety when sex offenders (guilty or innocent) are put behind bars. For all those involved in this task it's only the results that counts, not the truth!

Other embassies, such as the Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, German and French Embassy (North European in general), have a different approach. Those countries only assist in investigation when the local government (not APLE, but the Cambodian Government) officially request police assistance. The Cambodian Government rarely asks for assistance.”



8 comments:

  1. A very interesting, & I suspect truthful account of APLE, CCF et al modus operandi & the UK, USA & Aus gov's eager to get headlines actions!!

    Does anyone Know if Yang Dany is actually still alive? or has APLE & the rest arranged her "disappearance"?? More blood on the British Foreign Secretary's hands??

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    1. Yang Dany's mother, Kheang Sekun, has been instructed by APLE not to talk with the media. Samleang Siela has told her that "it is all over" as far as David Fletcher is concerned. In other words, there will be no more court appearances and Yang Dany is now irrelevant to the legal process. Given that Yang Dany told me weeks before she left that she had been instructed by APLE not to appear in court, I have few doubts but that Samleang Siela has arranged for her to go to China. Whether 'go toy China' is a reference to a physical locality or a euphemism I have no idea but I will be very surprised if anyone in Cambodia ever sees her again. Her presence back in Cambodia could prove very embarrassing to APLE if she were to tell the truth about how she came to accuse David Fletcher of raping her. In her interviews with me she told a large part of the truth but not all.

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  2. Death of an investigative journalist: Was Canadian Dave Walker slain over a non-governmental organization scam?
    It been nine months since noted Canadian journalist and author Dave Walker’s body was found on the grounds of Cambodia’s Angkor Watt ample complex. His murderer s — one assumes that more than one did the killing and carted away the body — have yet to be identified, nor has a motive been determined. Walker had been working on a Khmer Rouge story, but conventional wisdom holds that he wasn’t killed as a result of looking into a tale as long in the tooth as that. The perpetrators, after all, are getting older or dead, and most of the potentially harmful data has already been aired anyway. So why was Walker killed?

    Dave Walker
    There is a rumor, floating around the circle of expats that knew him, that he may have been investigating a scam involving Cambodian police and/or military officials and one or more non-governmental organization (NGO). The matter, described in a WoWasis story first introduced several years ago, involves a scam in which innocent western men are falsely accused of having sex with underage Cambodian youths of both sexes. These individuals are then shaken down by officials for an amount generally estimated to be in the $30,000 USD price range. If he refuses to pay, he is jailed and reported to his country’s embassy. Accusations are obtained through the false confessions of youths, their parents, or motorcycle taxi drivers, who are being paid directly by the perpetrators of the fraud, which would include be police, military, underworld figures and NGOs.
    Walker was aware of this scam. If, in fact, he was working on this story, he wouldn’t be the first westerner to have disappeared while investigating it. A prominent hotelier in Sihanoukville, who had investigated the story several years earlier, was abruptly arrested by Cambodian authorities on a charge related to drug distribution, which may well have been concocted to facilitate his arrest. He fled the country through certain legal maneuvers and wound up in the Philippines, where he was reported to have died in 2013. His death has yet to be corroborated.
    Dave Walker’s family, or those purporting to represent them, are saying little. They claim to know who the killer could be, but have been uncooperative with the media, perhaps because of general paranoia, imagined threats, or real ones.
    It all remains an enigma wrapped inside a mystery, but more and more of Walker’s acquaintances are beginning to think along the lines of his being killed as a result of investigating the NGO- police-youth sex scam that remains one of Cambodia’s most dangerous, profitable, and best-kept secrets.

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    1. If Dave Walker was murdered because he was on the verge of exposing scams like the one that netted Fletcher and if APLE was involved WTF is Licadho doing partnering with thieves and murderers!

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    2. Licadho receives money from Actions Pour les Enfants and is not going to bite the hand that feeds it.

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  3. I met David a couple of times at Ricks Bar, as it transpires just before he left Cambodia; in fact probably his last day. Never saw him at Bogie & Bacall's he must have been out @ the dump feeding the people.

    My observation: B&B's definitely no sign of grooming there, more like helping others who would never get employed otherwise, eg. a severly sight impaired guy.

    The next I heard was when I asked someone I knew from CCF what had happened to Rick's bar & was told "the ***#2^ Pedophile had been arrested in Thailand and was being sent for trial in Cambodia and would be locked up for good" reading the papers @ the time I (like most others) just accepted it as fact.

    Thanks to your efforts I have changed my opinion of David back to my original impression of him. I should have been more aware in the first instance given that the CCF person is "involved" with Oasis bar in 136 St & now 1 other bar in136 St and 1 in 172 St, where the girls must have a monthly check for HIV or not allowed to work, just which NGO is grooming??

    I set up and ran a small hotel & cafe/bar in South East Asia for while before coming back in Australia. I was out late one night & went out for a smoke chatting with a couple asked what they did etc, then was asked what I did I replied I had a small hotel in Thailand & was wiped out by the tsunami ....... her reply was & I quote " ARE YOU A PEDOPHILE???" (I am not, just to let you know) I am very good at cutting people to the quick verbally, but was so insulted & angry I chose not to respond because I would have verbally destroyed her & probably ended up being accosted by her husband; the security guard (who I had previously got on well with) overheard the conversation & followed me around for 15 min then told me to leave?? WTF!! So I can empathise with David in his current situation. If David has done anything then he deserves to be punished accordingly!!

    Tell David to be strong, last until he is out (alive) one way or the other so he can sue ALL those who are responsible; tell him not to let them get away with it.

    Enough rambling from me for now, good luck, and be careful yourself, you must have upset a lot of powerful people by now.

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  4. The Media , namely the Cambodia Daily and the Phnom Penh Post have most of the time have been comfortably in bed with APLE and CWCC. History shows that the Phnom Penh Post practices the opposite of investigative journalism, using Freelance Journalists to publish very biased and even pieces of conflict of interest on their News Paper.

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  5. You are treading on thin ice, Mr Ricketson!

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