Hi. Brendon Hammer’s evidence went by the board last week, as did Webdiary, when I got tied up writing news on SIEV-X for the Herald. The story is gaining momentum but, as many of you have remarked, it’s very complicated and very incremental.
Some have asked what I think really happened. David Eastwood writes:
“It’s f…ing hard to follow the threads of this SIEV-X caper. Perhaps there’s something clever your on-line wonks could do with technology and graphics that makes it easier to digest for those of us in the non-verbal neuro-linguistic zone?
Am I to understand that by negligence, incompetence or worse, my government and/or public service and/or armed forces may have contributed to the death of 350-odd wretched souls?
“We’re not at war, so it’s not a war crime. International waters, so I guess we’re not liable by international convention as such, but the “law of the sea” as I understand it (I am at times a mariner of sorts) does require all ships aware of an impending disaster within reach to render assistance if possible, at least by convention if not by letter.
“I’m not aware of too many international precedents for this. The routine Bangladeshi and Philippine ferry capsize disasters are usually human error or neglect by commercial enterprises, albeit poorly regulated.
“Outside war, how many other governments (using that term broadly) are complicit in this way?”
…
David, I don’t know where all this will lead, and I’ve given up constructing theories because the tale twists in mighty strange ways. The story is at the stage where the facts are emerging bit by bit, document by document, testimony by testimony. “The matrix of evidence”, as one lawyer on the inquiry puts it, has to be in place before theories can take shape. The contradictions are legion but their meaning is still moot.
For me, the saddest disclosure last week was that the vessel the children overboard inquiry dubbed SIEV-X (X is for unknown) actually did have a name. The minutes of the Prime Minister’s people smuggling task force I wrote about last week show that defence named it SIEV-8 on October 22, two days after it sank, with the tragic annotation, “Not spotted yet, missing, grossly overcrowded, no jetsam spotted, no reports from relatives”.
After it sank, defence removed its name, and transferred it to another boat on the way. The return to anonymity of SIEV-X makes the evidence of incoming navy chief Admiral Chris Ritchie that “it is not a SIEV (Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel) as far as we are concerned” rather flippant, to say the least.
The Weblog Zarook has compiled a comprehensive archive on SIEV-X from the drownings to the inquiry evidence, and Weblogger Marg Hutton is constantly updating it. She’s produced a fantastic resource for those of you interested in the saga. http://zarook.com/SIEVX/
TODAY’S ISSUE
1. My news story today on the latest developments.
2. Possible and actual references to SIEV-X in the PM’s people smuggling task force minutes.
3. A piece by Tony Kevin, the bloke who first raised questions about what we knew of SIEV-X before the tragedy, on the implications of the latest developments.
4. Reader comments from Nicholas Crouch and Mary Dagmar Davies.
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Here, there, wherever
By Margo Kingston
The government yesterday backtracked on its claim that 353 asylum seekers on mystery boat SIEV-X drowned in Indonesian waters, outside the range of the comprehensive defence force aerial surveillance of international waters between Indonesia and Christmas Island.
Defence minister Robert Hill reversed his position less than two days after telling the Herald he stood by his March assurance that “all indications” were that SIEV-X sank in the vicinity of the Sunda Strait in Indonesian waters. Asked yesterday if “you still maintain that boat was in Indonesian waters”, Senator Hill said, “We – well we don’t know exactly where it sank – what we do is that we didn’t have a capability to assist it because we didn’t know where it was”.
The backflip exposes the Prime Minister to charges that he misled voters during the election campaign on October 24 – the day after Australian Federal Police intelligence said SIEV-X sank in international waters – that “it sank in Indonesian waters – it had nothing to do with the actions of the Australian Government”.
Senator Hill’s reversal leaves Admiral Geoffrey Smith, the head of the defence force search, interception and return operation ordered by the government after Tampa, with yet more questions to answer on the tragedy. He told the inquiry last month that SIEV-X “foundered in the Sunda Straight”, after retracting his evidence that the navy knew nothing of SIEV-X either before it sank on October 19 or when Indonesian fishing boats rescued survivors on October 20.
In his letter of retraction, he admitted he had done nothing to search for SIEV-X after intelligence reports on October 18 and 19 that it was reported to have departed for Christmas Island and on October 20 that it was grossly overcrowded. On October 18, defence briefed the Prime Minister’s people smuggling task force that two boats were expected at Christmas Island with “some risk of vessels in poor condition and rescue at sea”.
A spokeswoman for the defence force said the navy would respond to Senator Hill’s remarks this afternoon.
Coastwatch chief Admiral Marcus Bonser has told the inquiry there was no need for a special search and rescue mission for SIEV-X because “a comprehensive surveillance pattern was in place doing nothing but looking for those boats.” But Admiral Smith’s retraction letter said that on October 19 he had pulled back aerial surveillance much closer to Christmas Island.
Speaking on the Nine Network’s Sunday program, Senator Hill appeared to withdraw his ban on the head of the defence force children overboard inquiry task force, Admiral Raydon Gates, giving evidence on Friday on his review of all intelligence the navy received on SIEV-X before it sank. Last week he banned Admiral Gates giving evidence as scheduled.
Senator Hill said he would now ban Admiral Gates giving evidence only on alleged witness tampering of a defence force witness by Dr Brendon Hammer, a senior office in the Prime Minister’s department. Admiral Gates made the allegation of witness tampering in a memo to Senator Hill on April 29.
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2. THE PM’S TASK FORCE MINUTES
Thursday, October 18:
Further Prospective arrivals
Intelligence re 2 boats with total 600 PUAs (possible unauthorised arrivals) expected at Christmas (Island), with one possibly arriving today … Some risk of vessels in poor condition and rescue at sea. No confirmed sightings by Coastwatch, but multisource information with high confidence level.
Other issues
Status report to be prepared for PM on above issues
…
Friday, October 19
Current state of play
Coastwatch advised 2000 still linked to boats, next boat to CI (Christmas Island) could be 250
Christmas Island
New vessel 60+ N miles NE of CI carrying 100+. Likely to reach contiguous zone in 8-10 hours. (HMAS) Arunta boarding in 1.5 hours and (HMAS) Warramunga may be asked to attempt return, but 2.5 days to get back to CI.
Other issues
Status report to be prepared for PM.
…
Saturday, October 20
Further arrivals
Second boat expected at Christmas tomorrow. If arrives, assessment to be made whether possible to return (the) larger vessel. Arunta to relieve possible overcrowding … Need to consider how to handle 2 boats – simultaneous or sequential returns – noting return will take 48 hours at 4 knots?
…
Sunday, October 21
Other issues
Check Defence P3 is maintaining surveillance over Christmas Island.
Monday, October 22
SIEV 8
Not spotted yet, missing, grossly overloaded, no jetsam spotted, no reports from relatives.
…
Tuesday, October 23
Indonesia
Detailed report from 19 yo Afghani male survivor – reports sunk vessel departed 0130 hours 18/10 with 421 on board, including 70 children. Stopped near Karakatu group of Islands at 0900 where 24 left vessel. 397 still on board. At 1400 on 19/10 vessel was taking water out of sight of land. Sank very quickly but resurfaced. About 120 people on surface. 7000 litres of fuel escaped? Seas rough. Only 70 ifejackets – none worked. 19-20 hours in water from 1500 on Friday 19/10 till rescued by 2 fishing vessels around 1100 on Saturday, 20/10. One fishing vessel rescued 44 people; another rescued 5 – 4 deceased and 1 survivor. 41 adults and 3 children survived, 352 drowned. Survivors taken to Jakarta – being cared for by IOM (International Organisation for Migration) at Bogor outside Jakarta. Vessel likely to have been in international waters south of Java. (Margo: Task force member Katrina Edwards says this report was from the AFP.)
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Wednesday, November 1
Other
Post (Australia’s Jakarta office) advises that Quassy (the people smuggler who organised the SIEV-X voyage) is likely to only be charged with immigration offences in relation to drownings as he was not in charge of the vessel.
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3. THE WHISTLEBLOWER
Tony Kevin in Canberra
Last week’s public release of sanitised People Smuggling Task Force (PST) summary minutes from 28 August to 9 November takes to a new level of credibility and urgency my queries since March about what the Australian border protection system knew about the sinking of SIEV-X, and why no effective safety of life at sea action was ever taken to try to save the 400 people on this grossly overloaded vessel.
More than 300 people drowned when SIEV X sank on 19 October more than 30 miles south of Java in international waters, bound for Christmas Island, with an Australian navy frigate only 4 hours sailing time away.
What later became known as SIEV-X was discussed in PST on 18, 19, 20, 22, and 23 October (and probably also on 25 October: there is a large blacked-out section in that days minutes, I would guess on SIEV X). It was even given a number in the series – SIEV-8 , a number later transferred to another vessel that did arrive. SIEV-X just vanished from the record until the release of the task force minutes.
On 18 October, it was one of two boats expected at Christmas Island (SIEV 6 was the other it arrived on 19 October) . On 19 October it was forecast it might have 250 on board. On 20 October it was entered as expected to arrive the next day. On 22 October, there is this spine-chilling minute entry: “SIEV 8 not spotted yet, missing, grossly overloaded, no jetsam spotted, no reports from relatives”. On 23 October, there is a detailed summary from an Afghani survivor account (presumably to an Australian embassy official in Indonesia, suggested by Katrina Edwards in her testimony to be from AFP) which ends with the key sentence “vessel likely to have been in international waters south of Java”.
This means that all member agencies in the PST are implicated in a systematic cover-up of Australian official knowledge of SIEV X, that has been going on in the Senate Committee since Senators asked the first questions in early April. This is hugely important, even for people and there are unfortunately many who care nothing for the lost lives of 353 asylum-seekers.
What we are also seeing here is a serious systemic failure of our Westminster system of checks and balances in governance. The Executive, supported by a few senior officials who seem to put their personal career interest ahead of the public interest in truth and respect for Parliament, has been during the past 10 weeks cynically kicking sand in the face of the Senate Committee system of public scrutiny and accountability. This matters, and to a much wider constituency than the refugee human rights constituency .
It is not just that officials have given incorrect evidence about what Operation Relex knew about SIEV-X. We have gone from “We knew nothing” in April, to “We had too many confusing reports to draw any firm conclusions from” in May and June.
Senators have also been seriously misled about how the general boat interception system operated; what surveillance there was to find or to try to find SIEV-X; and where SIEV X sank.
It is a complex and laborious to trawl through 1500 pages of transcripts to find the lies and inconsistencies. But here goes an effort at summary.
According to Operation Relex chief Admiral Geoffrey Smith in April, we had a three-stage layered system of intelligence reports from Indonesia triggering air surveillance in “windows” where boats might appear, up to as close as 30 miles from Indonesia, which is within range of where SIEV X sank.
But incoming navy chief Admiral Chris Ritchie on completely contradicts this in his evidence on June 4. He says intelligence reports did not trigger air surveillance. Air surveillance was not close to Indonesia, but was in regular broad sweeps of “funnels” much further south, nearer destination points. So there was no way SIEV-X could be tracked it never got far enough.
They can’t both be right. My money is on Smith – he was not under pressure at the time, but proudly explaining how well Operation Relex had worked. Ritchie on 4 June was very much under pressure.
Ritchie’s version is also undermined by that telling PST minute entry on 22 October, which suggests that RAAF Orions were looking for the boat or its wreckage. Why is this still being hidden? Are we still trying to claim that we knew nothing to confirm SIEV-X’s existence till we heard on CNN that it had sank? The PST minutes have sold that pass.
And here is the third leg of the failed cover-up, the claim that SIEV X sank in Indonesian waters. This starts with the Prime Minister on 24 October assuring the media “This boat sank in Indonesian waters” (subtext: so we are in no way responsible).
Yet on 23 October, the people smuggling task force had an Australian Federal Police report that the boat was likely to have been in international waters south of Java.. Media at the time (Australian, ABC, and others) reported that same location.
The false claim that it sank in Indonesian waters was sustained through to 22 May. Tell the lie often enough, it might be believed. It was in Navy’s April testimony, in Senator Hill’s March letter to Mr Crean, and still in Smith’s letter of clarification of 22 May. Only Bonser tried to encompass the range of truth, when he testified that it could have sunk anywhere between the Sunda Strait and 80 miles south of Java which, he also said, was in Operation Relex’s air surveillance zone.
The cover-up is falling apart the cover-up about what the Australian system knew about SIEV-X before and after it sank, about what air surveillance was tasked to look for it, and about where it probably sank.
The last big question now is why was there no attempt at effective search and rescue action when there might have still been time to save lives?
Every other question I have asked about what we knew about SIEV X has been shown to be well-founded. This last, biggest, one will too.
It will happen a lot faster and less painfully for Navy if senior officials stop trying to protect what should not in honour be protected. If there was political interference here let’s get it out in the open now, for the sake of the good name and morale of our Navy and our country.
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4. READERS COMMENTS
Nicholas Crouch
Margo, I am generally a fan of your Webdiary and consider myself to be pro-refugee, but the focus you have been putting on the kids overboard inquiry is just way overdone. You seem to be obsessed with this matter, and even though I find the conduct of Howard, Reith etc disgusting, I am no longer reading your web diary posts, as they are the sort of thing that only some sort of hardcore left-wing political junky could find interesting.
If there is a big development in the enquiry then by all means cover it, but this endless prattling on about SIEV-X, and all the rest of it is getting me to the point where if something better does not appear soon, I may just stop checking the Webdiary altogether. And that is something I seriously don’t want to happen as I have enjoyed the Webdiary immensely in the past.
I was looking forward to hearing you and the Webdiarist’s views on what Bob Brown had to say about Telstra last week, but evidently you are ignoring big political issues of the day in favour of commentary on even the most insignificant of testimony at the Senate hearing. Can you please lay off the refugee stuff for a while – I know there was some stuff on the Third Way a couple of times, but you have to admit you are very engrossed in the kids overboard. I have the feeling that you are one of the few people who are – even amongst those of us who are pro-refugee.
…
Margo: You’re right – I am engrossed. I’m writing SIEV-X news for the paper now, and using the Webdiary to explore the material in greater depth. This is a plus of the net. I haven’t got time to do anything else at the moment. I take your point completely, and recognise that I’m losing Webdiary readers. I believe this story is important, not only in finding out what really happened, but in exposing the current workings of power by this government, the pressure it has put on the defence force, the public service and the future of parliamentary accountability for Government actions.
I’ve noted you email address, and will let you know when I can return Webdiary to its usual program. I’m sure many others feel the same way – let me know if you do and I’ll do the same. I hope some people will persist in the journey to unravelling this mystery.
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Mary Dagmar Davies
My father was a Naval Officer, as was the man I loved and still love, and in my opinion Mike Carlton’s article `Smearing Navy Latest Sport for Axegrinders’ (See Battle lines drawn, June 9) was way off target. Like Mike Carlton I have known people in many branches of the service and been a guest in their homes and in the wardrooms of ships and shore stations here, in Singapore, Malta and the UK. I have experienced the tradition, dignity and glamorous power of the Navy which has my lifelong and steadfast loyalty. I also know terrible things can happen to exceptionally fine people when governments interfere with the operational procedures of the Navy. Even very senior officers can beguiled into behaving unbecomingly, cruelly, and destructively while believing they are acting in the best tradition of the service.
Margo’s question `What is going on in the Navy?’ is fair enough when Commander Norman Banks RAN, the Captain of HMS Adelaide, has to put his career on the line in a press conference and then to the Senate Inquiry in order to defend the truth that no children were thrown into the sea.
The Captain and his crew accomplished one of the most successful rescues in Maritime history their bravery and valour should have been acclaimed by Government, the Department of Defence and the Australian people. But instead his ship to shore signals were first misinterpreted, then misrepresented and then disregarded as the `children overboard’ lie became central to the boarder protection component of the election campaign.
Admiral Barrie and others were prepared let Commander Banks hang out to dry, just as their predecessors had let the blameless Captain John Robertson RAN hang out to dry during the Voyager Royal Commission. Had it not been for Air Vice-Marshall Houston RAAF (who told Reith straight no children were thrown overboard) another distinguished RAN officer could have been destroyed in the `best tradition of the service’. While, as Carlton says, the `RAN officer corps is imbued with the traditions of integrity and duty’ it seems this ‘funny old fashioned stuff’ is not shared by superior officers influenced by political imperative.
Retired Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Peek said in November 2001, just prior to the election, that under the Government’s current rules the services are completely muzzled and treated rather in the way the German population was treated by Dr Geobbels in World War II. So how could personnel from many ranks speak openly to Mike Carlton, who is such a high profile member of the press and who has publicly attacked the government’s stand on Asylum Seekers? Harking back to another quaint tradition, was Mike Carlton press-ganged?
Questions about Siev-X must be asked. Former Ambassador Kevin cannot be dismissed as someone promoting conspiracy theories. Until very recently he was entrusted to head the Australian Diplomatic Mission in some of it’s most sensitive and volatile posts. And government must be prevented from interfering in the Navy’s operational procedures because the Navy has big and dangerous toys and sometimes people can die.
During WWll Winston Churchill, wishing to impress his new ally Stalin, personally planned Fleet Air Arm strikes from aircraft carriers in the North Sea. The Royal Navy suffered appalling losses of aircrew. Orders remained after the element of surprise was gone. Aware of the risk an entire squadron took off and never returned … they ceased to exist. The oldest airman was 22, he was the only married man, and his wife was pregnant. His child was born three months after his death. I am that child.
The terror of a slow and painful death in violent and treacherous seas is not outside of my imagination. Every life is equal and every life should be acknowledged. I did not know the 353 of Siev-X but I grieve for them. I did not know my father but I grieve for him.
I am proud to be the daughter of that officer and proud of the Navy in which he served. I believe had he lived he would demand to know what happened to the people of Siev-X.