This is Part One
of a comment (a very long comment) sent to this blog by Tom Selig. It was then
mostly removed by a hacker who has found a way of getting into this blog and
deleting certain comments.
Nine years ago
concerns were raised about APLE’S modus operandi that are, you will see,
identical those raised today.
It seems to me that the only reason
some anonymous bloggers here are desperately fighting against David Fletcher
ever having a fair trial is to protect their own source of income - which necessitates
the victimizing of people. These poor souls that couldn’t make it into the
upper ranks of their homeland police remind me of the special forces combatants
that once they return home after service they found themself ostracized by
their own society - which often enough consider them mass murderers or simply a
danger.
The mercenaries of the child
protection industry in Cambodia are an equal danger to society since they draw
their meager existence on stalking and vigilantism drawing a monster (the white
male) on the wall that pretty much resembles themselves.
The comments of the Khmer440 bottom feeders
and APLE volunteer assassination gang sound like you are talking to a lynch mob
as one khmer440 blogger said some time ago. The mere fact that these people blog
under Anonymous means that they got a lot to hide. They are possibly not as
liliwhite as they try to portray themselves and their main concern is to loose
their source of income from being a snitch - hanging around girlie bars in
Phnom Penh etc. feeding the APLE Machine.
In all this debate one tends to
forget who created this PROTECT Program in the first place. No other than French
national Thierry Darnaudet, a suicidal (July 27 in Calcutta 4 star hotel)
backpacker with no background other than being a frustrated librarian on a
search for a reason to live. Thierry Darnaudet’s PROTECT Program was largely
financed and supported by Spanish globalhumanitaria.org – run by his buddy Andres
Torres.
I was not surprised to see the US
Government immediately take a liking in this program and adapted it into US
Law. The NSA must have been extremely grateful to Darnaudet since they sent the
US Ambassador to pay a visit to APLE. Even Bill Clinton was not too far off
when he visited Villagefocus.org 's Phnom Penh Office (a financial
support NGO of the
first day's of APLE).
To get all this into the perspective
of what happened in the past 10 years here is an old email exchange between Canadian
Aid worker and Aple's Katherine Keane (operating in Sihanoukville) in 2006.
From APLE's
ex-Country Director Katherine Kaene to James Dunsmore after a mobile phone text
message.
Dear James,
I write in response to your text
message of today:
“I am your
informant putting myself and my future Charity work at risk by helping you
carry out your mandate. I call your dedication to this management of sensitive volunteer
field assets into question and request an official appointment with your
agency's National Director at your earliest convenience. I will travel to the
capital to facilitate this if that is necessary. RSVP ASAP.”
I feel that it is best that I reply
to this text message via email.
First, no appointment with our
National Director is necessary as I personally am taking over that position in
two weeks and will be handling all such matters.
Second, myself and other APLE staff
are extremely busy handling a multitude of responsibilities and tasks and as
such must make time-management decisions based on carefully considered
priorities.
It is not practical that we respond
to every demand for an immediate appointment made by someone claiming to have
urgent information. Your insistence on meeting during my personal time on
Wednesday night for a matter which you claimed was urgent (but in fact was not)
is an example.
Third, as you can imagine we do not
hold meetings with people providing us with information in our office as the
location is best kept quiet and our office contains much sensitive information.
We have undercover staff
working for us and as a result must
respect their privacy. Instead, we choose other options for communication:
- meeting in various locations in
town which we know to be safe, friendly places where we can discuss sensitive
matters in private (i.e.Starfish Cafe or small Hotel)
APLE respects the confidential nature
of all information and the privacy of all those who provide us with that
information.
I must admit to finding your
insistence that a telephone is not a
'secure channel' for discussion in Cambodia
a little strange. Your refusal to email me the information you claim to have
today rather than meeting in person is also troubling considering your apparent
great concern for being seen in public with APLE personnel.
Fourth, I find it a troubling allegation
and do not understand your claim that providing APLE with information places
your future charity work at risk. My understanding is that you are working
part-time as an English teacher at a school for Cambodian children. APLE
cooperates with many child-rights organizations working in Sihanoukville and
experiences
no problem in this regard.
If your concerns of our 'dedication'
are indeed so great then I would recommend that you simply choose in future not
to contact APLE staff. APLE will of course maintain the confidentiality of any
information provided with you to this date.
Yours faithfully,
Katherine Keane
Technical Advisor
Action Pour Les Enfants
Sihanoukville, Cambodia
James Dunsmore's
reply:
Dear Ms. Keane, 16/09/06
Thank you for your email reply and I
apologize for the garbled text message you received, apparently it's a Khmer
cell network issue.
You must appreciate that by me acting
on the children’s behalf by providing credible information on potential
imminent threats to their safety to your organization puts me in a position
where people can get suspicious as I circulate in groups you could never
circulate in as everyone knows you and your mandate.
To be seen more and more in your
presence creates rumors and my well being can be compromised as a Snitch if
word gets out. If my well being is compromised I will not be acting as a
Volunteer for my charity here so my future plans will be compromised as well,
to the detriment of the children we are both here to help.
I now understand the matters of
security of meeting you or members of your staff, I'm sure you can appreciate
mine. I don't have an organization protecting me.
I have been approached and
congratulated by unknown local Khmer that have intimate knowledge of the
sensitive information I passed on to you so as far as you claiming to honor
standards of confidentiality for information, I beg to differ.
The information provided to you the
other night was dismissed as not “urgent” maybe so in hindsight but it was not
irrelevant. I was surprised at your ignorance at hearing that
the stretch of beach where the French national was murdered is a known
pedophile child procurement zone.
I thought the possible connections
that were time sensitive at that time may have helped you in some way. Hopefully
you can add that area to your watch list in the future as it is highly active.
The crux of what I was hoping for
clarification on was involving the Oceans Hotel. When I heard you actively suspect
the hotel of providing under-aged prostitution services and
engaging in human trafficking, I wondered why you would not have alerted me
earlier to that fact as you knew I was living there. I have a
reputation that I take extra care to avoid even the presence of wrong doing and
have gone out of my way to
help you. Did you have designs for my
possible Entrapment to boost your numbers in a raid? Absolutely callous
by any moral standard and Illegal.
As far as your information, I have
been living at the Hotel as the only resident besides the family and small
staff for the last 7 weeks. It has never been used for the purposes of
prostitution and there is no intention to do so now or in the future.
It is an 8 room, full service hotel
complete with restaurant and bar, no more no less. I know because upon hearing
your allegations I investigated personally to determine if my patronage of the
Hotel would continue or not. It has and it will.
It seems in the instance of the
Oceans Hotel, you have prejudged the owner and his business on what facts I
won’t comment. I strongly call into question your “bush league”
investigative techniques in verifying what information comes your way
from what ever source, to ensure its validity.
You know as well
as me that any allegation regardless of fact or fiction has the potential to
destroy reputations no matter what the final outcome.
You have a duty of Responsibility. A
duty you are negligent of in at least this case.
I'm on your side as a humanitarian
Volunteer in the field of helping the children of Cambodia and I felt very
slighted as I thought I had earned your trust with the information provided and
the official documents for you to verify my identity.
I've nothing to hide but feel that by
my association as a guest at the hotel, I may have been put under scrutiny as
well, for no legitimate reason, thus potentially violating my rights as well in
your
ongoing, baseless fishing campaign.
I have heard
from local sources that your techniques are being perceived as increasingly
unethical, unsound and in any first world country would be deemed illegal on
the grounds of an illegitimate invasion of privacy.
As far as your comments about the
owner Ron Haswell, the use of the term Human Trafficker is malicious, spiteful
and could open your Organization to increased public scrutiny and/or legal
proceedings as your tactics are widely seen in the community as a
vindictive smear campaign against mostly honest Caucasian men.
If your misdirected suspicions of
activities going on in the Oceans Hotel are any indication, your allegations of
Ron being a human trafficker are completely unsubstantiated and you're
acting on pure, uninvestigated rumors and innuendo.
Any amount of time spent in
investigating your information related to Ron would confirm the fact he is not
engaging in any wrong doing but you have obviously not even attempted to do
this as your time in Sihanoukville is drawing to a close in favor of your
promotion to the Capital and you seem to be more interested in accruing
political brownie points than engaging in responsible investigative
techniques.
Were you aware the Oceans Hotel is
now possibly the only establishment in the Kingdom of Cambodia that voluntarily
enforces a strict policy of verifying every Patron’s identification prior to
admittance? Or that Mr. Haswell has also pledged a portion of the hotel’s
profits directly to
the Goodwill School Charity? I
thought not.
The credibility of your organization
and you and Zelda (Hunter) personally are now being openly questioned in the
community and the benefit of the doubt in other investigations against others
will equally lose merit due to your acknowledged tactics thus allowing genuine
sexual predators a
freer reign than if you had acted
professionally from the outset instead of chasing honest shadows in the dark.
Your credibility
has been damaged in my eyes as well due to the cavalier attitude you both
displayed the other night over your complete lack of respect for an innocent
man’s personal and professional reputation. I thought about what you said and felt I had misunderstood you
so I asked for clarification on Friday.
Without clarification on these
points, I can only speculate you have an agenda against American citizens from
the Philippines (as you described at our meeting that that was your
main reason for suspecting Ron) and are drawing parallels from the
American from Tramps Palace who was
recently exposed for debauchery for
imprisoning minors by another NGO which I believe is one of your
rivals.
It is slander to
paint an innocent man with the same brush as a known felon but that fact seems
to have no bearing on your agenda to score career points for yourselves.
It’s called Defamation of Character
which is Illegal in anyone’s books.
Any allegations
of impropriety targeting the Oceans Hotel would directly impact on me, being
the sole guest, so indirectly, judgment would be passed by the court of popular
opinion by your vicious gossip without proper investigation, charges laid or
trial against me so I could defend my impeccably good name as a Volunteer.
The last point of which I sought
clarification is the comments made about the Khmer Police and other Civic
Authorities that will benefit from my volunteer teaching of English to
facilitate liaisons with western law enforcement agencies currently being
deployed to Cambodia to reduce the dependence on Non Police, Non Government
Organization personnel who though their heart may be in the right place, have
neither
the training, diplomacy or tact to do
any progressive work.
The comment put
to me was "Why would you want to help the Police here?" My question
as a law abiding citizen is “Why would I not volunteer to help the recognized
authority of the land in combating pedophilia if I could?”
What possible
reasons could there be that Zelda (Hunter) does not want to entertain or foster
cooperation with the Police by aiding in every possible way, unless she has a
vested interest in her own position and the continued justification of your
organization's operational budget?
It seems you
have either poor or non existent relations with the authorities here, are
seemingly trying to falsify evidence and are actively propagating rumors to
justify your mandate and thus, your global budget. Or is it that you at Action Pour Enfants
believe that you are above the law in Cambodia and elsewhere in the 3rd world?
Very interesting, troubling and
deeply thought provoking.
I believe more clarity is needed
between your organization’s role and the public of your host countries in
general, Sihanoukville’s community in particular as they have been repeatedly
victimized with no basis during your tenures here.
From my limited
understanding, you are neither a Police Officer or a Government Organization so
please help me understand the source of your authority here in Cambodia to
target innocent, law abiding residents with unsubstantiated rumors.
It seems to
many, you are operating with a pseudo Vigilante mentality that could be easily
construed as nothing more than a orchestrated campaign of male harassment in
the eyes of legal professionals anywhere there exists the rule of Law.
I and others here would very be
interested to formally examine your Organization’s mandate, mission statement
and employee training standards prior to engagement for it’s Members because it
either needs modification to comply with basic human rights or you are not
acting in accordance to it's guidelines in the pursuit of your own hidden personal
career agendas.
There is no way your current,
unethical tactics are sanctioned by your headquarters but if they are, there is
even more reason for public debate on who is allowed to operate in the 3rd
world unchecked as the innocent of all walks need protection from foreign
abusers operating beyond the reach of the law in their own opinions.
These are some of the reasons I made
a legitimate request to arrange a meeting with your Director, Thierry
Darnaudet, as it seems you have every intention of operating by your own rules
unsupervised here in Sihanoukville and wishto keep this abuse of authority
quiet until you assume your new position in the Capital where you will have
more authority to continue the cover up your past improprieties in our
community and possibly propagate more with your expanded powers throughout
Cambodia.
I believe there should be an transparent,
open to the public debate into the very legitimacy of your organization based
on you and Zelda’s operating procedures and prejudiced belief system
that I and other innocents have experienced firsthand.
Ma’am with all due respect, you two
personally need more operational controls, checks, balances and accountability
for your indiscretions, not more power.
If your organization’s position is to
not be forthcoming on these legitimate requests from the concerned, respected
members of the Sihanoukville community, I'm utterly speechless.
I ask again for there to be a meeting
with your Director as it's even more important now as you seem to be actively
blocking attempts to expose the truth by stipulating a meeting is not
necessary. In your opinion, of course it’s not but there is a much more ominous,
growing concern than your personal career enhancement goals.
I believe the community you serve
should have some say.
Would the National Director's office
not be suitable forum to start?
I mean no personal ill will in this
letter and hope we can work
productively to continue serving the
community but there seem to be too many questionable practices ranging from my
confidentiality being breached by you directly or someone in your organization,
your vigilante like zeal to harass legitimate business owners without proof, a
non
cooperative
attitude toward the legitimate Authorities of Cambodia right up to the feeling that the possibility of any
allegations of wrong doing not be brought to the attention of your outgoing
National Director.
As your Director, Thierry Darnaudet,
is ultimately accountable for all of your actions, I'm sure he wouldn't be
adverse to a meeting to address the misunderstandings your ladies unfounded and
malicious allegations have raised and to help quell the furor simmering
in the community against your organization’s indiscretions
before he leaves Cambodia charging you to suppress the fall out of the folly of
their rein as Director here in the Kingdom of Cambodia.
There is no reason at this point not
to keep this all in house, but if attempts are made to shirk your
responsibilities to the community you’ve repeatedly and recklessly attempted to
violate, I'm sure there are other organizations that would be happy to bring
this to a broader arena, one that you yourselves are so adept at manipulating
for your organization’s continuing budget…the court of popular opinion.
I seek confirmation of the receipt of
this correspondence by someone senior to yourself for obvious reasons to
discuss when these issues can be addressed.
If the Cambodian head office’s
position is to continue to operate in bad faith, we will have no option but to
advise the recognized authorities in Bolivia, Columbia, Guatemala, India,
Nepal, Nicaragua, and Peru that your organization operates outside the realm
of ethical, accountable, law abiding behavior in Cambodia and should
be fully investigated in
these
impoverished, open to exploitation areas of the world as well.
I’m sure your collaborating
companies, organizations and donor base would appreciate knowing who they have
affiliated themselves with so they, like I at the Oceans Hotel can make an
informed decision whether to continue affiliations with your organization or
not. You, unlike the Oceans Hotel and Ron Haswell have engaged in activities of
which a cover
up we believe will go ahead the
moment you assume your new, expanded duties in Phnom Penh in less than two
weeks.
Thank you for your time.
Myself and many others involved
parties eagerly await your
Organization's official reply in this
matter with ever increasing
interest.
Regards,
James Dunsmore BSSc Tech SP,
Volunteer Educator
...to be continued...
