spicyayam
[QUOTE][COLOR=#333333]Ask any cop. In almost all cases it's the family or a close "friend".[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
Yes that is true. It is amazing how the family though were able to use social media to divert some attention off them. It is chilling reading some of the comments now.
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[QUOTE]My name is Christina and this is my statement. Yesterday I arrived in Bali. My mother and sister drove hours away to meet with the highest priest of Bali. I awaited their return. My sister dropped off my mother at her home in Sanur to rest, then left to pick me up. I meet my sister and we receive a call from our mother. She is frantic and screaming. “What the hell is going on?”, I think to myself.
-After another exhausting day, endlessly searching the possibilities of Angeline’s whereabouts as well traveling hours in the car, my mother came home to a congregation of reporters. Then, an uninvited visitor showed up from Jakarta. Arist Sirait, official representative of Indonesia’s Child Protection Commission (KPAI), was at her house with an unknown female companion. They had not called my mother, they had not made an appointment, and yet they had the audacity to present themselves to my mother’s home after dark.
-As you all know from the petition we had asked you to sign and email to the Indonesia’s Child Protection Commission (KPAI), we had reached out to KPAI to ask for help. We thought they could help us find Angeline. What we didn’t realize, was that their only objective was to take advantage of Angeline’s high profile case for the profit and benefit of their own under-funded institution. 8 days after Angeline went missing, 8 days of Indonesia seeing a beautiful little girl’s face going viral on the news and social media, 8 days of not hearing a word from KPAI, and now they show up on my mother’s doorstep like some ego-inflated superhero.
-Apparently, all the reporters were aware of Sirait’s arrival from Jakarta, and they eagerly prepared their cameras, lusting for a juicy story to develop. Meanwhile, my mother is confused, tired, and depleted in every way. She is 60 years old, dies her hair black to hide the whiteness, and is a grandmother of two. Siriat demands to come inside with his female companion.
SIRAIT: Mam, we only want to help you. We just want to see Angeline’s bed room.
-First of all, this is illegal. The house is a crime scene, and the only people authorized to inspect and enter are the police. But imagine you are my mother, and someone is offering to help you find your child. You are so tired, but these people say they want to help.
MAMA: Okay that’s fine. but I wish you had called first. My house is a mess right now, I haven’t had time to clean.
SIRAIT: Oh don’t worry about that mam, we only want to help you.
-They notice the chickens.
SIRAIT: “Oh, do you make money off the chickens?” they ask sweetly.
MAMA: Yes, I do what little I can to make some money off the chickens.
-They come inside, acting very sweet and polite. They distract were with petty chit-chat as they observe the surroundings. As my mother leads them out, they step outside the gate and continue the conversation. They ask her question after question about how Angeline was adopted and what the relationship with her parents are. These are not questions for them to ask. These questions are for the police to ask. Who do they think they are? Then they begin to bombard her with a bizarre series of questions that utterly confuse my mother.
SIRAIT: Where is she now? Let’s go get her! I want to go get her with you. I just want to help you.
MAMA: Get her from where?
SIRAIT: Mam, don’t be closed off with us. Please be open. We are trying to help you. We want to get her now.
MAMA: I am not closed off. Get her from where? We don’t even know where she is yet.
SIRAIT: Mam, don’t you want us to help you?
MAMA: Of course, who doesn’t want to be helped?
SIRAIT: Okay well then let’s go get her now!
MAMA: I don’t understand, get her from where?!
SIRAIT: Mam maybe your child left because you yell at her.
MAMA: Maybe? So you are accusing me for her disappearance?
SIRAIT: We are just trying to help so you have to be open with us.
MAMA: Why, have I been closed off?
SIRAIT: Well you said you got a phone call…
MAMA: Yes I did.
SIRAIT: Did you report the phone call to the police?
MAMA: Of course I did! Every time we get a phone call we forward it and tell the police!
SIRAIT: But there hasn’t been a ransom request?
MAMA: There has! There has been!
-Again. Siriat asks my mother questions that he has no business asking. These are matters for the police, not a shameless, fame-seeking politician. He continues to instigate my mother with further questions and as she grows increasingly emotional, she answers truthfully to each one. Interestingly enough, police personnel are standing closely by, observing without intervening.
-Now the unnamed lady asks my mom to go see her room again. This time my mom refuses. She tells her she doesn’t want to do that, but the lady insists and says she just wants to see. “You sleep in that bed with her?”, she asks. “Yes that’s where we sleep”, my mother answers. Siriat and this woman appear to leave and exit the gate.
-Now, there is a time and place for such business to be conducted, and this was absolutely inappropriate. This is not standard protocol. This is unacceptable. These Jakarta bureaucrats fly down to Bali to judge my mother’s lifestyle, unannounced, not knowing her story - not knowing that her husband died after Angeline was adopted, and left nothing, and that her only form of income is renting out rooms and selling chickens. Yvonne and I help out when we can, but we are not rich either! The male maid that my mother hired is lazy and stubborn. He receives his salary but he does not do his duties, which is obvious from the lack of cleaning in the household. Siriat and this woman come from their mansions in the capitol of Indonesia, a country of which one third of the population lives in poverty, and judge a lifestyle strikingly different from the urban, metropolitan norm. Is the village mother who lives by pigs and cows and chickens an unfit mother because of her environment and her lifestyle?
-As they exit the house for the second time, they assume my mother is safely behind the gates inside her house. Siriat commences his statement to the reporters in front of my mothers house.
MEDIA: Sir, what’s going to happen when they find the child?
SIRAIT: “This house is unfit! This is an unfit place to raise a child! We are going to seize her and take her away from her mother.”
MEDIA: Why is that sir?
SIRAIT: Because this child has faced trauma, and she will return and be traumatized again.
-As they are giving their statements to the reporters, they didn’t realize my mother had followed them out. My mother shoves her way to the front to where the cameras can see her. She is sick of being told to stay calm, she is sick of being shot down.
For the past week her friends and family have urged her to stay calm, to brush off the cruel comments of people who don’t understand. We tell her this is normal, the media wants a story and they will do anything it takes to have one. ‘You know you are a good mother, and we know that, and that’s all that matters.’ With the help of prayer, family and friends, my mother has thus far managed to keep low key and suppress her emotions about the press and the untrue stories of her domestic abuse. What’s funny is that Yvonne is 37 years old. I am 27 years old. People forget that Angeline, Yvonne, and I were all raised by the same mother!!! This is my sworn truth to you, that Yvonne and I were never abused or used as children. Our mother is not perfect, but who is??? Our mother has been planning to move from the Sanur house for a long time. She knew it was getting to be too much, she was too old and that house was too big to constantly manage and keep clean. As soon as I was finished with my studies in the US I was going to move home help her clean out that house and start fresh. This is not information relevant to the search for Angeline, however.
MAMA: (My mother loses her temper) She starts yelling at Siriat.
Unfit?? You mean unfit for a child? My daughter never gets sick. She is strong and smart and healthy. The way my house looks is my own business! Yes Angeline knows how to do chores and make her own food. Is it wrong for a child to be smart and to help her own parents at a young age?
SIRIAT: Well, this place is not fit for your daughter. Your room is very messy.
MAMA: Oh really? So you want to take my child? Did you raise her for 9 years since she was a baby? Did you clothe her and feed her from a baby until now? If you want my house to be fit, go ahead and financially support me so that I can make it clean. Just give me the money and it will be sparkling clean.
SIRIAT: We can not do that mam. We will be the one to take over Angeline.
-(As they say this I wonder why they do not even discuss the matter of Angeline’s two older next of kin and legal guardians in the case that our mother is indisposed, that is, Yvonne and myself.)
MAMA: -(She points furiously to the direction of the main intersection)So how about all these children begging on the bridge? At the red lights? On the streets? How about those children carrying even smaller children, babies strapped to their chests, begging at the stop lights? Don’t you want to help them? Don’t you want to take over for them?! Those are the children you need to prioritize in helping! Help those children that are starving, poor and homeless with what little clothes they have falling off their back. My daughter doesn’t have problems requiring help, THOSE kids have real problems!
SIRIAT’S FEMALE COMPANION: “Itu nggak sama. It’s not the same.”
MAMA: What’s the difference? Why is it not the same? My daughter is a human child. Those kids are human children too. Help those kids first, they need help first. My daughter isn’t of need, her needs are fulfilled.
SIRIAT: Mam do you want help or not?
MAMA: How are you helping me? By forcefully taking my daughter away from me? That’s not helping! You don’t need to help me. My daughter is coming from America, and she’s going to take Angeline with her to America. She’s going to live a better life there anyway.
SIRIAT: Oh no you can’t do that.
MAMA: What! Why not?
SIRIAT: Because she is your foster child. You can’t do that. You’re not allowed to do that. You can not take her to America.
MAMA: My daughter is legally mine. She has official adoption papers signed by notarists. Why can’t I do that?
-This was our mother’s breaking point. She is so overwhelmed with anger and grief and that she begins to cry and wail at the top of her lungs. Sometimes when no human will listen, the only one you can talk to is God.
MAMA: TUHAN, BANTU SAYA!! JESUS PLEASE HELP ME. IN MY WEAKEST POINT, IN MYHARDSHIPS AND TROUBLES THESE EVIL PEOPLE ARE STILL COMING TO ATTACK ME. MY DAUGHTER IS GONE AND I AM SUFFERING IN SORROW. THEY SAY THEY WANT TO HELP ME BUT THEY ONLY JUDGE ME, BLAME ME AND HURT ME!!
-Our mother can no longer defend herself from her attackers. She is worn and beaten down. She leaves the circus to their heartless affair, closes the gate behind her and goes to her room. Not one person there offered my mother consolation. Not one person said, ‘Ibu, it’s going to be okay’. They stood there and watched a mother who is missing her 9 year old daughter, who’s birthday was never celebrated, as she stood there getting attacked and interrogated in the dark of the night. They don't even disperse after my mother leaves. The reporters shoot off question after question and Sirait answers them all. Can you imagine knowing that there is a group of people accusing you of the most horrific atrocities - of hurting your own child, right outside your own home? And there isn’t anything you can do about it?
-Roughly 30 minutes later, Sirait calls my mom. He wants to apologize, and claims that he wanted to help. My mom tells him I don’t need your false help, all I need is God’s help. I haven’t slept, I haven’t ate. You show up without telling me, and you pass harsh judgement on me.
I don’t need your help, God is all I need.
What took place last night was unbelievably disgusting. We thought that Arist Sirait was an educated man of a noble profession with good manners. What they did last night lacked class, etiquette, and good ethics. They attacked and accused my mother when she was emotionally unstable in front of cameras. It would not be surprising if Sirait brought these reporters from Jakarta, and financed their tickets as well as the slant of their story. It is the job of the police to eliminate my mother as a suspect, and nobody else. Not the media, the KPAI, or the people at home watching tv. Our family is ready to take legal action against KPAI for the defamation, libel, and emotional destruction they have caused our family.
Now you know the real story. Let us turn out focus back to Angeline.
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