SIEVX tragedy

I was down at Weston Park in Yarralumla, Canberra on the weekend with a friend when we spotted a series of uprised poles snaking across the ground next to Lake Burley Griffith. Because I am almost blind without my glasses, I naturally assumed that they were Aboriginal ceremonial poles, although I must admit they appeared nothing like they did in the art galleries.

Nevertheless, we decided to check it out and came across several Shia Muslim names written along with pictures drawn by children.



- picture from Sievx National Memorial Project


It was a memorial for the victims of SIEVX – the name used to describe the “Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel X” that sunk under tragic circumstances in 2001.

I knew vaguely about SIEVX, but of course, I never paid attention to it considering I was only 13 and more preoccupied with clothes and petty girl “bitching” than the lives of more than 350 asylum seekers.

But today I decided to check it out and the two words that kept coming up was – Australian complicity. These two words make me both mad and incredibly depressed simultaneously. I’m not in love with my country and I don’t particularly espouse it’s integrity on human rights on a daily basis, but sometimes I still like to believe that they would not be so complacent concerning the lives of fellow human beings.

Here is an explanation in a nutshell, from Marg Hutton on her excellent website Sievx.com

In October 2001 353 asylum seekers drowned trying to get to Australia in an area of ocean that was patrolled daily by Australian border protection surveillance aircraft. Those who lost their lives were mostly women and children, many of whom were desperate to reunite with husbands and fathers already here.

“There has been no official inquiry into this horrific tragedy other than the limited examination by the Senate Select Committee on A Certain Maritime Incident (CMI).

The Howard government took no action on the first recommendation of the CMI report for a judicial inquiry into people smuggling disruption activities undertaken in Indonesia by Australian and Indonesian police. It also ignored the subsequent Senate motions which specifically called for a broad ranging judicial inquiry into disruption activities and the sinking of SIEVX.

“The lack of a comprehensive inquiry has allowed for the proliferation of theories that go well beyond the evidence – that the Australian navy watched people drowning in the water but failed to rescue them or that the boat was deliberately sabotaged.

“The sinking of the SIEVX will always remain clouded in suspicion with the truth lost in a fog of contested claims, obfuscation and denial unless and until there is a full powers independent judicial inquiry into this matter.

Ms Hutton said that the new government could mean that the tragedy will finally receive the attention needed.


- SIEVX victims

In an article for Fairfax newspapers, and archived on Ms Hutton’s site, La Trobe University Professor Robert Manne concluded with the two paragraphs that have made me wish several bad things on Prime Minister John Howard (I’m too nice to say them here…)

The case concerning SIEV-X can be summarised, with precision, like this. It is now clear that no Australian aircraft or naval vessels spotted SIEV-X before it sank.

It is highly unlikely, although not impossible, that if aircraft had been sent to survey the waters south of Java on the morning of October 20, any lives could have been saved.

Yet it is also clear that on the morning of October 20, at a time when the government had learnt from an entirely reliable Australian source that 400 asylum seekers were in deadly peril, and at a time when no one knew whether or not they were still alive, no decision was taken to issue a warning or to mount a search and rescue operation of any kind.

In the history of our callous indifference to Middle Eastern asylum seekers, no single fact is more disturbing than the passivity of the Australian Defence Force to the dangers facing 400 fellow human beings in the three days between the morning of October 20 and the morning of October 23, when the anticipated news of 353 deaths finally arrived.

This to me seems to be one of the most disgusting acts by the Howard government. The fact that there was such a reluctance to investigate it made me even madder.

How can anyone possibly look to the Howard government and not turn away in disgust at their human rights abuses in relation to asylum seekers, refugees and Aboriginal people?

How could we have voted Howard in for ten years? Why wasn’t he given the boot? Are we too obsessed with the economic prosperity of our own selves to care about the well being of others?

I agree – Australia is the lucky country. I always hated to say that because it is very unlucky for Aboriginal people, but compared to other nations we are so incredibly fortunate.

Just looking at the current food crisis throughout Asia and Caribbean countries and the riots that are expected points to this latter.

When I hear the whinging that goes on in Australia I just want to close my eyes and scream. I’m really sick of the rife consumerism, the want for more stuff and the disregard for the plight of our neighbours, mainly the West Papuan struggle under Indonesia.

And of course, I’m mad at myself because I am also a consumer and a receiver of Australia’s prosperity. How on earth do you change?