Dear Scott
It is now two and a half years since I began to correspond with you and the Cambodian Children’s Fund on 10th Sept 2011.
My request at the time was a simple one – to be put in contact with the family I had, a few years beforehand, filmed in the Phnom Penh rubbish tip.
Using a variety of different reasons, (one of which involved you telling me, whom you had never met, that I was a ’voyeur!) you refused to put me in contact with the family or to pass on to the family that I was wishing to make contact with them. You also lied to me about the help CCF had given to the family.
I eventually tracked down the parents, despite your attempts to make this impossible. They informed me that they had recently asked the CCF to return their daughters to them and that CCF had refused to do so.
I asked the parents if they had signed any form of contract or agreement with CCF in relation to their daughters that gave CCF a legal right to keep the girls against the wishes of their parents. They said no, that they had entered into no written agreement with CCF.
I cannot speak to the truth of what the parents told me regarding a contract or agreement – only that they wished to have their daughters returned to their care and that CCF refused.
I filmed with the the family that day – the mother and father having just returned from their days work in the new Phnom Penh rubbish dump. They told me that CCF provided them with no financial help at all; that CCF had done nothing to help them extricate themselves from their life of working in the dump (for a combined income of $1000 per annum) and become sufficiently self-sufficient to be able to take care of their daughters.
It should not be necessary to even make this observation but these parents loved their children and the children loved their parents – as my footage make perfectly clear. It broke their hearts to have limited access to their daughters and to be refused when they asked to have them returned to their care.
During this meeting with the parents (filmed) I reiterated a promise that I had made to them a few years earlier – namely that when my film CHANTI’S WORLD was completed, when I had some money, that I would buy them a block of land in the their home province and enable them to make the first step towards becoming self-sufficient. They were delighted.
On my next trip back to Cambodia I went to visit the family – only to discover that they had moved. Their neighbours did not know where they had gone. Again I had lost contact with them. Again I appealed to CCF to put me in contact with the parents. You refused.
I would like to give you one last opportunity to put me in contact with the family. I wish to fulfill my promise to them to buy them a block of land. I had hoped, when I first made contact with Patrick, that it may have been possible to acknowledge in CHANTI’S WORLD the good work I believed at the time that CCF was doing. Instead, the story I have to tell is one that does not show either you or CCF in a good light.
I am copying this to others at CCF so that there is no possibility, further down the track, of you saying that I did not give you an opportunity to correct the serious error in judgment you made when you decided to prevent me from contacting the family.
I have attached a few stills from that part of CHANTI’S WORLD that deals with the lives of family – not just working in but living in the Phnom Penh dump.
best wishes
It is not always the case that where there is smoke there is fire but it sure as hell is a good idea to take a good look at where the smoke is coming from and see if there is a fire on the way. I know Scott well and used to admire him - before he started getting rid of all CCF staff who he suspected might tell the truth about what actually goes on behind closed doors as opposed to what Scott says goes on. The smoke, in this instance, is James McCabe - a corrupt police officer who became Neesons's drinking buddy and right hand man. I don't know Mc Cabe well but my brief encounters with him did not dispel the doubts that accrue to a man with his shady reputation. Perhaps Mc Cabe has had a Road to Damascus conversion but why would a crooked cop come to a crooked country in search of redemption. For any journalist who gives Neeson the Somaly Mam treatment, follow the money. There may be some surprises in store. And check this out: http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1170209.htm
ReplyDeleteFollow the smoke. Keep following it. Through the clouds of obfuscation that will be thrown up by the Scott Neeson publicity machine, a very clear picture will eventually emerge. It is not a pretty one.
ReplyDeleteMr Neeson will move heaven and earth Mr Ricketson to prevent you or anyone else in the media from talking with anyone associated with the Cambodian Children’s Fund. He has created his own very persuasive myth and convinced enough people (including gullible Hollywood celebrities) of its truth not to want his image shattered by those who have had first hand experience with CCF. It is for this reason he will never put you in contact with the family you seek. He fears what they might say about him and CCF. The man is a control freak, as I know from experience.
ReplyDelete