Tam Long reignited the SIEV-X debate with his rebuttal of Tony Kevin’s analysis. Today, Marg Hutton, who runs the sievx website sievx, and friends Mary Dagmar Davies, Kay Kan and Marilyn Shepherd, reply to Tam Long. Marg has set up a memorial section at sievx. You’ll find all the published material on SIEV-X on her site.
The debate so far
Tony Kevin: SIEV-X: mystery unsolved, smh
Tam Long: SIEV-X: Right of reply, smh
Long comes up short on SIEV-X
By Marg Hutton, Mary Dagmar Davies, Kay Kan and Marilyn Shepherd
Tam Long’s article brings comfort to the average reader. Most people who have heard of the SIEV-X affair are horrified at the ‘conspiracy theory’ put forward by Tony Kevin and others that suggests that Australian authorities contributed to the drowning of 353 people. No-one wants to believe that our government and its agencies could be in some way complicit in such a crime.
Tam Long’s article provides reassurance that we don’t need to worry about it – Tony Kevin is just an over-emotional, insignificant individual who mistakes a cock-up for a conspiracy.
Unfortunately, Tam Long is entirely mistaken. Tragically, readers should be concerned about the role of Australian authorities in these deaths – especially since the revelations broadcast on the Sunday program last weekend that a paid AFP informant has publicly admitted to reporters that he sabotaged the boats of asylum seekers in order to prevent them coming to Australia.
Tam Long’s criticism of Tony Kevin’s theory is based entirely on a misreading of his conference paper to ‘The Tampa: One Year On’ conference last month. He appears to have done no research whatsoever and to be completely ignorant of the vast body of evidence from the Senate inquiry, Dateline and Sunday.
His reassurances about the innocence of Australian authorities are based on a series of false assumptions:
1. That there is no evidence for Tony Kevin’s claim that SIEV-X could have been sabotaged.
FALSE – because it is now on the public record that Kevin John Enniss, a paid informant of the Australian Federal Police, boasted to reporters from the Channel Nine Sunday program that he has personally sabotaged and sunk nearly half a dozen asylum seeker vessels.
And for those who find it hard to believe that Australia would use such methods to halt the flow of asylum seeker vessels, the Sunday program included a quote from Greg Humphries, a former Australian Immigration Officer involved in the sabotage of Vietnamese asylum seeker vessels in the 1970s:
“We took a pretty broad interpretation of the terms of reference to stop these boats. We did because we had some very capable fellows with the screwdrivers and brace and bit. And we bored holes in the bottom of the ships and the boats and they sunk overnight.”
We know that the passengers who boarded SIEV-X were forced on to the boat at gunpoint, that the boat was grossly overloaded, that people were crammed like sardines on to the vessel (the deckspace for each passenger has been estimated at 40cm X 40cm), that the vessel had a large crack in the hull and was leaking, rotting and too deep in the water to go safely to sea from the beginning of the voyage. Given all this, it is not a huge leap to suggest that we can rule out sabotage completely.
It is worth noting that in the recent history of asylum seeker vessels that have attempted the voyage to Australia this is the only one where we know people were loaded onto a boat, instead of being encouraged to get off!
2. That the location of the sinking is unknown and unknowable.
FALSE – because there has been lengthy discussion on the sinking location of SIEV-X and the co-ordinates of where the survivors were rescued are known – 07 40 00S, 105 09 00E, 51.5 nautical miles from the coast of Java – right in the heart of the Operation Relex zone.
The Prime Minister’s own People Smuggling Taskforce was informed on 23 October that the “vessel[was] likely to have been in international waters south of Java” when it sank. Also, Australian authorities knew about SIEV-X before and after it sank, and that it might need rescue at sea.
Although the actual location of the sinking is unknown, we have been informed by a Search and Rescue expert that the position of a sinking can be calculated, provided the position of rescue and time of sinking (GMT) are known. The exact time that the survivors were rescued is not known, but there is enough data available for sophisticated computer software to determine the broad area in which SIEV-X foundered. This would finally put to rest the mistruth peddled by Howard and Hill that the boat sank in Indonesian territorial waters in the vicinity of the Sunda Strait.
3. That the sinking occurred in an area where Indonesia had full responsibility for SOLAS and Australia had none.
FALSE – while it is true to say that SIEV-X sank within Indonesia’s international zone of search and rescue responsibility, it is also quite misleading because the Indonesian search and rescue zone encompasses virtually all the waters in the gap between Christmas Island and Indonesia.
What Long is therefore implying is that if a SIEV should founder anywhere on the high seas between Indonesia and Australian territorial waters off Christmas Island then we should let it sink as it is not our responsibility. This is very much a political view and totally ignores the fact that at the time that SIEV-X sank, Australia had in place “the most comprehensive surveillance” in the waters between Java and Christmas Island in at least thirty years (Admiral Bonser, CMI 1638).
When we chose to mount an intensive aerial and maritime surveillance operation in the Indonesian Search and Rescue zone we also took on SOLAS (Safety of life at sea) responsibilities.
4. That Tony Kevin is an insignificant individual who has no capacity to challenge the official government line.
FALSE – because former Ambassador Anthony Kevin was chosen to lead Australia’s diplomatic mission in some of the most sensitive of all diplomatic postings. Such postings do not go to the ‘middle rank’. That a person with Tony Kevin’s background is prepared to put his credibility on the line in order to get to the truth about SIEV-X suggests that there is a case to answer.
5. That Tony Kevin’s paper fails to present a convincing argument because it doesn’t meet academic standards.
FALSE – because the conference paper was written to fit the constraints of the 25 minute time span allocated to each speaker and not intended as an academic piece. Kevin doesn’t attempt to present all the evidence in this paper. Instead he refers readers to an archives of evidence at sievx.com – Tam Long would be well advised to follow his own advice and do some research before writing.
Tam Long criticises Tony Kevin’s conference speech while choosing to ignore detail of testimony to the Senate Inquiry, painstaking research, published articles, two Senate submissions and evidence from Mr Kevin himself. Tam Long appears to prefer to discredit rather than debate and to condemn those who simply are looking for the truth.
6. That Tony Kevin failed to mention the survivor accounts that unknown boats ‘shone searchlights on them in the water but then sailed away’
FALSE – This was mentioned (see Section headed What did Operation Relex and Norcom do, para 4) and Tam Long has obviously not read Kevin’s paper very carefully.
In closing, Tam Long would do well to reflect on these question: “If the Government story about SIEV-X is kosher why have witnesses given false evidence under oath to the Senate Inquiry about Australia’s knowledge of the boat, why has Robert Hill continually hindered and obstructed the
Inquiry, refusing to allow important witnesses to be called, and why has the Government’s own internal review of Intelligence related to SIE-VX misrepresented key documents?
SIEV-X is a tragedy – 353 died people trying to reach a great country they thought would welcome them and give them freedom. The 353 believed in Australia but Australian did not believe in them – they were denied in death as they were in life.
In this entire country only one man cared enough to speak for them. Tony Kevin was the sole advocate for the people of SIEV-X and he has risked everything to seek the truth.
Tam Long should take the time to acquaint himself with the evidence before he shoots the messenger.