Tam Long has done the SIEV-X debate a big favour. At last, a debate on the merits!

There are three main aspects of the navy’s behaviour which raise concerns. First, that Operation Relex Chief Admiral Geoffrey Smith swore falsely that the navy knew nothing about SIEV-X until after it sank. Second, that no investigation of any sort took place after the tragedy to see if something went wrong in surveillance, intelligence or co-ordination between navy, coastwatch and the rescue body – as indeed it did according to the evidence – raising concerns that it did not care about all those people dying, could have been infected by the government’s demonisation of boat people, and did not do all it could to fulfil its duty to save lives at sea. Third, that the government stopped a key witness, Admiral Raydon Gates, from giving evidence. There is also the mystery of why Howard said at the time that SIEV-X sunk in Indonesian waters, contrary to contemporaneous reports from intelligence, and refuses point blank to reveal the source of his claim. In other words, if there is nothing to hide, why is so much hiding going on?

The great bulk of commentators who say SIEV-X is a non-story heap personal abuse on those who think otherwise, imply or assert that noone has the right to raise any questions and leave it at that. Only Mike Carlton sought to address the issue of Smith’s evidence, suggesting, after talks with Smith, that he denied prior knowledge of SIEV-X because he thought the intelligence reports on it were secret.(See smh.)

All we’ve got from members of the navy, defence department and political hierarchy is outraged general protestations which are often downright misleading, just like they were on children overboard before and after the election. (See for example Exchange of correspondence at webdiary). Straw man stuff.

But when whistleblower Tony Kevin stated his case in SIEV-X: mystery unsolved ( webdiary) Tam Long wrote a considered response in SIEV-X: Right of reply (webdiary). The women behind the SIEV-X website archive sievx, led by Marg Hutton, entered the debate in SIEV-X: The case for concern (webdiary)

Tam Long has been through several drafts of his reply, and admits he wishes he could get the subject out of his head. I know what he means, but I’m glad he hasn’t.

For other views on SIEV-X, Sarah Stephen has written extensively on the issue in Green Left Weekly. Her latest piece is at greenleft. Linda Tenenbaum wrote a four part SIEV-X series for the World Socialist Website (wsws)

***

SIEV X: The Truth Is Out There But Not Where Some Are Looking

By Tam Long

As a general rule it is best not to respond to praise or criticism, as both are usually unwarranted in extent. However the importance of the people smuggling issue (including Tampa and SIEV-X) and the tendency for some people to misjudge participants in the debate prods me forward again quite reluctantly.

Like most Australians I was horrified at the sinking of SIEV-X. Any chance that such a tragic loss of life could be repeated must be prevented. I think where many people part company with each other is in their perception of what to do next.

Surely the best way to prevent further such tragedies is to look forward and stop the people smuggling and its callous exploitation of both genuine and bogus asylum claimants. The UNHCR is to be congratulated for its current firm steps along this path in order to protect the core integrity of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Some people, however, seem to choose to look backwards by appearing more interested in apportioning blame for SIEV-X rather than preventing future tragedies or placing SIEV X in its wider context as part of the worldwide people smuggling and “asylum shopping” crises. In too many cases the search for blame over SIEV-X appears to be focused in the wrong areas and is therefore unlikely to prevent further tragedies.

In some cases the process of seeking someone to blame has even become an end in itself and seems to lead some people even further astray. This is particularly so when such blameseekers assume a self-righteousness cloak as the only true seekers of a quasi holy grail – “proof” that Australia is wholly to blame for SIEV-X.

Such misguided “crusaders for truth” are also becoming increasingly impatient and intolerant concerning any criticism of the threadbare credibility of their hypotheses. They seem to believe that anyone who dares to argue with them is necessarily evil or ignorant (of their “facts”). This is the slippery path to bigotry.

Morally, such an incapacity for objectivity cruelly cheapens the tragedy underlying their misguided zeal the deaths of 353 people on SIEV-X. Forgetting the need to forestall repetitions of this tragedy because of such misguided zeal demeans those who died. Slandering those wrongly and/or recklessly accused of responsibility is also immoral, as is ignoring those probably or really guilty.

We need to find out what happened with SIEV-X but am I alone in being increasingly troubled by the tendency to just assume that only Australia is or could be at fault? I also object to the silly tendency to attribute blame (or suspicious motives) to Australian authorities to an extent that is not applied to other countries, even when it flies in the face of overwhelming evidence to blame Australia only.

Preventing future tragedies like SIEV-X surely means focusing analysis on all those countries and international organisations at fault or focusing on none of them. An exclusive focus on Australia simply undermines the credibility of any such analysis.

Tony Kevin (perhaps less so than some of his followers), seems to believe that the Australian government and its subordinate authorities (including Coastwatch, Immigration and the armed forces) simply stood by and let 353 people drown when they could have literally sailed by and saved them. Tony Kevin also appears to believe, and certainly his more paranoid supporters are convinced, that Australia went even further and deliberately sank SIEV-X and murdered 353 people as a warning to the people smugglers and the unfortunate people they exploit.

Call me naive if you like, but I find such claims counter-intuitive to commonsense, and Australia’s way of life. They are also a sad reflection on how bad history teaching in our schools has become. There is almost a complete absence of verifiable evidence or reasonable argument to support such sweeping claims.

Few of the supposed arguments pursue a logical line forward from robust factual analysis. Most seem to instead assume Australian guilt and only search backwards to select and analyse evidence in light of that predetermined guilt only.

Much of what attempts to pass for argument relies on tortuous chains of consecutively, dependent and often unlikely or disputed links, where one break in the chain would demolish the whole proposition.

Genuine bureaucratic confusion, knowledge gaps, or admissions by Australian authorities that something is not known, are treated automatically as “proof” of some complex Australian conspiracy or coverup. In this way, proponents of alleged Australian skulduggery bizarrely use the very lack of evidence for such skulduggery as their “evidence” for it and its supporting “conspiracy”.

This is just silly, especially when you remember that Australia’s open and democratic society just does not produce or nurture the numbers of callous thugs and ethically crippled officials needed to authorise, plan and mount a vile conspiracy on such a scale.

I would happily throw the book at any Australian who can be proved guilty of criminal responsibility or criminal negligence for the sinking of SIEV-X. But I would be a lot more comfortable if more of those interested in the SIEV-X issue were willing to pursue guilty parties in Indonesia, and elsewhere, with the same ferocity that allows them to blame Australian authorities using what is often only flimsily constructed supposition.

Too many correspondents obsessed with SIEV-X and Tampa seem to always give Indonesia the benefit of the doubt (even in difficult or fairly incriminating circumstances) but are unwilling to accord the same courtesy to their own country at all. A degree of marked naivete and wallowing in conspiracy paranoia, for example, appears to afflict many contributors to the SIEV-X website run by Margaret Hutton.

There are too many claims apparently based on the false principle that everything from an Australian official source is automatically suspect or an outright lie (as part of some massive and complex coverup), yet every foreign source or journalistic “scoop” is automatically believable.

This is simply not an objective way to investigate any problem, especially a major tragedy such as the sinking of SIEV-X, where a balanced sense of perspective is essential. Some “SIEV-X conspiracy groupies” seem even willing to build their own grassy knoll out of rubbish in order to reach the limelight (or more moonshine). This lack of objectivity and critical judgement is resulting in what should be an informed public debate sinking into a slanging match.

The great bulk of public opinion is simply repelled from enquiring into SIEV-X through natural scepticism, disgust or boredom at the sweeping claims of the more extreme protagonists.

It also often seems that many of the conspiracy theorists cannot see past or through their blind hatred or blanket suspicion of the Howard government.

Conveniently for such conspiracy theorists (especially the apparent “Howardophobes”) however, many of them also often seem to have a cultural myopia that allows them to overlook the appalling human rights record of the Indonesian authorities (no matter who is in government there). No doubt they also missed the recent forced repatriation of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from Malaysia, the numerous associated deaths in custody from brutality and starvation, and the ensuing attempted coverup. After all, to such a way of thinking real foreign outrages and conspiracies dont count but imaginations can be loosed to run riot where Australia is concerned.

All other things being equal, and until there is any actual and significant evidence to the contrary, surely a tragedy such as the sinking of SIEV-X is more likely to have been caused by Indonesian than Australian skulduggery. I do not exclude the possibility of some Australian involvement (by omission or perhaps even commission) in the sinking of SIEV-X, but I also try and keep an open mind about other, often far more plausible, possibilities or probabilities. This is where I seem to part company with Tony Kevin and his followers.

Why are so many people prepared to only blame Australia? Even when SIEV-X survivor accounts mention seeing grey boats shining searchlights on them in the water without helping, some people still cannot bring themselves to apportion any suspicion or blame to Indonesia?

This moral equivalence of Australia to Indonesia, given the appalling human rights record of the latter and the pretty good one of the former, is just ridiculous. How can people so readily forget, for example, the recent butchery and destruction in East Timor by “militias” organised, armed and directed by Indonesian government officials, apparently sanctioned from the highest levels of the Indonesian government and still widely defended as “legitimate” and “patriotic” in Indonesian ruling circles.

My (hopefully informed) scepticism is also greatly increased by Tony’s marked reluctance, or inability, to concede the centrality of the broader people smuggling issue to any worthwhile analysis of single incidents such as Tampa and SIEV-X. Even the UNHCR recognises that (in its words), “secondary movement of asylum seekers using people smugglers to shift from countries of first asylum such as Pakistan, Iran and Jordan to wealthy Western democracies threatens the collapse of the 1951 Refugee Convention”. If the UNHCR can see the wood as well as the trees why cannot Tony Kevin and his followers do so?

Many of the people who have objected to my brief critique of the paper by Tony Kevin published in Webdiary appear to have missed the key point involved. It does not matter what Tony has printed or said elsewhere or indeed whether he is right or wrong. The key issue is that the truth can only come out if our inquiries are objective, thorough and unclouded by emotion or bias (such as suspicion or hatred of the Howard government on one side or absolute confidence that they could never make a mistake on the other).

Many defenders of Tony seem to have also missed that my critique was of Tony’s paper in Webdiary not his speech to the “Tampa One Year On Conference” and the associated questions and answers (although it was little better).

Some of Tony’s defenders have claimed that his conference address was not as emotional. Some have also claimed that Tony has spoken out against people smuggling elsewhere. The record indicates this charitable interpretation is partly true. Why then, cannot Tony Kevin construct and provide a comprehensive and balanced argument incorporating all these essential aspects?

The intellectual crux of the matter is that if Tony Kevin is right in what he believes, he can and should convince people of this with facts and reasoned argument, using passion as seasoning not to provide the only chewy bits. Tony Kevin’s paper is not up to scratch in terms of objectivity and reasoning for what purports to be a serious paper on a serious issue. Such a flawed and emotive paper could never convince reasonable people of his contention by passion and allegation alone. It is more likely to brown off any informed readers by its flawed aim, use of unduly emotional language, selective or scanty facts, exaggeration, narrow focus, subjective analysis and the numerous obvious holes in its reasoning.

The moral crux of the matter is that it is very wrong, and counter productive to Tony Kevin’s professed aim, to simply accuse the Australian government and our armed forces of callously letting 353 people drown with so little evidence or objective argument to support the proposition. It is even more immoral to make such claims when they are used, by the more extreme obsessives, to then allege that Australia somehow sabotaged people smuggling boats in a deliberate attempt to kill those aboard and the people smuggling trade that feasts off their desperation.

***

Now, if I may be allowed, a brief rebuttal of the specific attacks on my critique of Tony Kevin’s paper that was contributed by Margaret Hutton, Mary Davies, Kay Kan and Marilyn Sheppard.

I am sorry that Hutton et al feel my critiques brought comfort to “average readers” whoever they may be. As another average Australian I hope they can again condescend to consider how I might presume to disagree with them.

Contrary to their assumption, I do not regard Tony Kevin, or any other Australian, as an “insignificant individual”. Perhaps this is due to my natural rural regard for my neighbours. I can understand how this might not be easily grasped by those non-average Australians who congregate around conspiracy websites.

I think where we are never going to agree is in the importance of critical judgement in weighing the comparative value of evidence. Hutton et al, for example, seem to have an unqualified belief in the uncorroborated boasting of a paid police informant from a criminal background. Such trust has traditionally not been shared by most juries.

It is an unfortunate but necessary fact that the only informants that can usually be cultivated in the criminal milieu are themselves criminals or of dubious repute. Their information and utility must consequently always be weighed carefully against a range of moral, legal and operational criteria, and pitfalls, and the use of such informants sometimes backfires. Criminal informants are also often inaccurately boastful to their police handlers (and to journalists where they have no fear of retribution from other criminals). Journalists also often appear to display gullibility concerning the claims of such informants, no matter how wild, uncorroborated, self-seeking or mercenary (sell their “story”, etc).

In the specific citing of the AFP informant Enniss by Hutton et al, even if what he said is partly or wholly true, even he claims that none of his alleged sabotage activities involved danger to or loss of life. Or is Enniss not to be believed in this regard but believed in regard to everything else? It is not logical to have it both ways, especially as Enniss denies any involvement with SIEV-X and it departed from Sumatra where he apparently never lived or operated or had any local influence.

Hutton et al accuse me of “ignorance” and “no research” in my critique of Tony Kevin’s paper yet the narrow frame of reference, selective evidence and often shallow reasoning of Tony’s paper is somehow OK. I would hope I have just tried to view the evidence from the Senate Committee Inquiry and elsewhere with more applied scepticism and against a wider background. Perhaps the main difference between the approach of the conspiracy theorists and my approach is that I am prepared to believe that I could be wrong (and can be convinced accordingly by proper argument).

This aside, and most importantly, my critique of Tony Kevin’s paper deliberately confined itself to the same facts as he cited in his paper (this is why it was not necessary to cite his references again). In this way I tried to analyse the key issues wherever possible using an agreed basis in fact. There are disadvantages to this approach (as we have seen by the consequent name calling), but I thought it best to concentrate on Tony’s core message rather than on him as the author or on other issues which he had not really covered.

Hutton et al raise six points in which they beg to differ with my analysis of Tony Kevin’s paper. Several of them are “straw person” defences and all involve selective quotation and/or confused argument. Interestingly they do not defend any of the numerous other holes exposed in Tony Kevin’s arguments by his critics.

Evidence of Sabotage

Despite Enniss’s uncorroborated boasts about sabotaging SIEVs departing from West Timor, and despite what might or might not have been done to stationary and often empty SIEVs safely inside transit harbours (not at sea) in the 1970s, where is the evidence (rather than supposition) that SIEV-X was sabotaged by Australia before its departure from Sumatra?

Hutton et al agree that the passengers were “forced on to the boat at gunpoint” and that the SIEV was therefore “grossly overloaded” with its passengers “crammed like sardines”. They also concur that the boat “had a large crack in the hull” and was “leaking, rotting and too deep in the water to go safely to sea”.

Hutton et al then posit that, “given all this it is not a huge leap to suggest that we can rule out sabotage completely”. I agree given its terrible physical condition it is obviously far more likely that the boat sank because of these matters than sabotage. Inductive reasoning also points to a similar conclusion. In the hypothetical and very unlikely scenario that Australia was willing to risk the lives of those aboard, and even if Australia had the capacity or opportunity to sabotage SIEV-X (and even Hutton et al seem to concede Australian intelligence authorities had virtually no information on its prior circumstances and eventual departure), why would you bother “sabotaging” a vessel that was going to sink anyway.

Even more importantly, the counter people smuggling action taken by Australia is apparently focused on getting the Indonesian authorities to legally prevent departures. I would therefore support the general proposition by Hutton et al that it is suspicious that SIEV-X is the only boat where (it is known) that the passengers were forcibly loaded, but my suspicions apparently lie elsewhere than theirs The act of forcible loading surely indicates no Australian involvement rather than the reverse as Hutton et al apparently believe. There are other distinct possibilities, including:

* Bribed Indonesian security officials were behind the forcible loading (hardly that unlikely given the widespread corruption in Indonesia) and regarded it as a “once off” or their final job with no repeat business likely, and therefore no need to cultivate a passenger friendly reputation.

* The overloading and/or sinking was either an accidental or deliberate result of a feud between rival people smuggling gangs and/or their corrupt backers among the Indonesian authorities.

* With or without the sanction of their government, Indonesian officials deliberately chose to ruthlessly let a boat sink because they wished to send the people smugglers (and perhaps more their customers) an unequivocal message.

Any of these scenarios are supported by the interesting probability that the boat did not appear to turn back towards Java when sinking. This would indicate either the crew’s marked degree of fear of the consequences of returning to Indonesia (even to another port), or that the boat was expected to sink by its crew anyway. In the apparent absence of any surviving senior crew (itself perhaps suspicious) we are unlikely to be able to determine the truth of these scenarios one way or the other.

Location of the Sinking

My comments as to the unknown location correctly referred to the precise location of the sinking not the general area. Rather than dwell on finding the precise location of SIEV-X’s sinking I think we need to keep looking at the big picture – the general area involved. This is generally agreed as being about 50 nautical miles south of the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra, under about one fifth of the distance from the strait to Christmas Island (280 nautical miles) and not far outside Indonesian territorial waters (the 24 nautical mile limit).

Unlike Hutton et al, I put no great weight on the confused statements in Australia as to where the boat sank except to note that the confusion is most likely caused by Australian authorities genuinely not knowing where it sank (then and subsequently) rather than deliberate obfuscation or evil on their part.

More importantly, Hutton et al choose to describe the probable location as “right in the heart of the Operation Relex zone”. Even excluding the fact the suspected location was in the very northern part of the zone rather than its heart, this is very subjective emphasis and terminology. It appears designed to avoid acknowledging a key contradiction in the conspiracy theorists’ version. How is it that they can so blithely ignore that the sinking was actually well inside Indonesias Search and Rescue Region (SRR) and far closer to Indonesia than the nearest speck of Australian territory (with mainland Australia over 1135 nautical miles (over 2000 kilometres) away?

There are five other important related points to the sinking location that Hutton et al ignore or misunderstand.

They thoroughly misunderstand the term “international waters” as somehow exonerating Indonesia of any responsibility at all. Whereas the sinking actually occurred well within Indonesias internationally designated region of maritime and air search and rescue responsibility. They selectively use the term “international waters” (meaning domestic Indonesian law does not apply although the sinking was well within Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone and Indonesia’s search and rescue region) completely out of context, and wrongly apply it to infer that Indonesia has no responsibilities at all in this area (or that Australia has international search and rescue responsibilities).

They ignore that the area south of Java is often peppered with fishing boats virtually identical with SIEV, and is by no means an expanse of ocean where a suspected SIEV necessarily stands out, either when floating or sinking. This greatly complicates the surveillance problem in general and the search for any one boat in particular.

They appear not to know that aerial surveillance is not continuous or ubiquitous and is quite weather and time of day dependent.

They appear not to realise that the “Operation Reflex surveillance zone” does not mean that there was an area continuously under a form of surveillance coverage or monitoring. The boundaries of such zones are simply used as a planning tool to focus the planning of individual aerial surveillance flights within the area, not as a means of portraying or guaranteeing coverage of all events that are occurring, or might occur, within the zone enclosed by the boundaries.

They conveniently ignore that the published records clearly show that there was bad weather in the area when the SIEV sank. This no doubt greatly contributed to the sinking, and would mean that the vessel would have not been readily noticeable to aerial surveillance flights even where the weather allowed such flights.

Indonesian Search and Rescue Responsibility

If it were not for the apparent predilection of Hutton et al to ignore Indonesia, I would be puzzled by their startling claim that it is somehow “false” to note Indonesia’s SRR and consequent obligations. Of course they also continually overlook other Indonesian responsibilities such as the eradication of people smuggling, the arrest of the corrupt officials involved in it, and stopping the departure to sea of grossly overloaded and manifestly unseaworthy vessels which illegally leave harbours. I am, however, still puzzled by the subsequent weird contention of Hutton et al that:

“While it is true to say that SIEV X sank within Indonesias 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”.

The Indonesian SRR actually includes Christmas Island and all the waters between it an Java so it is hard to see how anyone who looks at the chart could be misled. Hutton et al then go on to claim that I imply that any SIEVs foundering between Indonesia and Christmas Island can be ignored because it is not Australia’s responsibility. This is not true but, in their defence, is probably due to their pronounced moral, legal and procedural confusion on the SRR issue.

If Australia has the means in the area and we thereby learn of a vessel foundering then we should obviously help Indonesia with its responsibilities in this regard, as occurred when Australia notified Indonesia of the Palapas distress and advised the nearest vessel, the Tampa, of the situation. However, despite Australia mounting some general surveillance flights in the international waters between Java and Christmas Island (as part of a domestic law enforcement operation within Australian territorial waters around the latter), the international responsibility to monitor this area for search and rescue purposes, and to react accordingly (including notifications and rescues), legally and morally remains with Indonesia. This is especially so for Indonesian owned and crewed vessels leaving Indonesian ports (and is not affected by whether or not this is part of an Indonesian sponsored criminal act). Australia cannot legally subsume Indonesian responsibilities under international law in this regard.

At great cost and difficulty, Australia rescues round the world yachties in distress thousands of nautical miles from Australia because much of the southern ocean is in Australia’s SRR despite some of it being closer to other country’s territory. Why then cannot Indonesia be expected to rescue Indonesian vessels in distress only 50 or so nautical miles south of its main island, well within its SRR and closer to Indonesia than anywhere else? The whole point of the international agreement on search and rescue is to share the burden and Indonesia has responsibilities in this regard it cannot morally and legally ignore.

Tony Kevin

Hutton et al erect a complete “straw person” in falsely claiming that I described Tony Kevin as an “insignificant individual who has no capacity to challenge the official government line”. This is neither true nor fair. My only concern with Tony Kevin as an individual is when, in his writing on this subject, he moves outside his area of career expertise or is wrongly assumed by others to have such expertise. Based on his own comments, errors and misjudgements for example, Tony Kevin obviously lacks expertise on Indonesia, the international law of the sea, search and rescue responsibilities and procedures, intelligence processes, international police liaison, and military matters generally.

As to the “middle-ranking diplomat” description, Tony Kevin would no doubt admit the truth of this. It was included to provide perspective to the assessments he offered (as it would, for example, had he been a headmaster or a bank manager). Hutton et al also do not appear to realise that “ambassador” is an appointment not a rank and that many of our ambassadors to smaller countries are quite middle level public service grades (roughly analogous to the manager of your local Centrelink office).

Standards of Objectivity

This is another “straw person” defence by Hutton et al. SIEV-X is a serious matter of public debate. Even if Tony Kevin’s speech to a conference was only 25 minutes in length this is no excuse for this not to be backed up by a serious and considered supporting paper. Such a paper must be of credible (academic) standard, cover all the key issues and objectively discuss major alternative viewpoints, possibilities and probabilities before drawing thorough and balanced conclusions. It is quite wrong to accuse Australia (and the navy, etc) of grossly improper behaviour, or worse, without undertaking serious effort to mount a proper public case.

SIEV X Survivor Accounts

Again Hutton et al resort to a “straw person” defence, but additionally make the incorrect claim that Tony Kevin’s paper covered the survivor accounts mentioning that “unknown boats shone searchlights on them in the water and sailed away”. Tony’s sole and peripheral mention of the survivor accounts in his paper was “Orion flight 2 made contact at 1930 with and the (widely reported by survivors) observing boats”. He did not mention the “grey boats”, “searchlights” and apparent abandonment, nor did he go into any detail as to the SIEV X survivor accounts and their implications. This seriously undermines the credibility of his research and motivations, for if these accounts are true how can they be explained.

Even Tony Kevin concedes that the nearest Australian vessel (HMAS Arunta) was 100-150 nautical miles away. We are therefore left with the clear and unpleasant alternative that if the survivor accounts are true, these other boats would have to have been Indonesian. This would surely put a very different complexion on the whole SIEV-X incident. It may even be a more likely explanation than those put forward by the conspiracy theorists to explain Australian official reluctance to release some details. These details may be being withheld for fear of seriously embarrassing Indonesia when we need their cooperation in eradicating the people smuggling trade.

Summary

Finally, apparently unlike Hutton et al, I think there is a difference between “false evidence” to a Senate Inquiry and mistaken evidence given honestly, or conflicting evidence from multiple sources. While I too am troubled by some senior officials not being allowed to give evidence, on balance there appear to be several more plausible explanations for this than the ones Hutton et al apparently seem so wedded to.

I note that Hutton at al do not attempt to address any of the six points I posed to Tony Kevin at the close of my critique, nor do they try to defend the numerous other gaps exposed in his arguments by his many critics. This inability or reluctance to do so surely typifies their narrow and seemingly obsessive focus.

Where Hutton et al and most Australians thankfully agree is that SIEV-X was a tragedy. Where Hutton et al and I appear to disagree is on four points:

* I put a high priority on preventing a repeat.

* I see no evidence or logical reasoning that the sinking of SIEV-X was solely Australia’s fault or was at Australian instigation.

* I see little or no evidence or sound argument that Australia was a major contributor to the tragedy, although hindsight has given us several lessons to help prevent a repeat on our part.

* I do see Indonesian fingerprints all over the incident and I remain deeply puzzled why such obvious evidence, motives and modus operandi are so readily ignored by the “Australian conspiracy” theorists.

In a parting shot to their little defensive piece Hutton et al write, somewhat ironically, that “Tam Long should take the time to acquaint himself [sic] with the evidence before he [sic] shoots the messenger”. Well I certainly do not seek to shoot any messengers. I regret that they hold me responsible for some of the collateral damage to Tony Kevin’s credibility as his arguments and “facts” increasingly splinter under objective fire from his critics. Better arguments on his part might have provided him with a better shield.

The sinking of SIEV-X is a very serious matter. It is part of a broader very serious problem – people smuggling and the consequent severe damage this causes to the 1951 Refugee Convention. Analysis of the SIEV X and wider problems necessarily require a balanced perspective and objectivity in argument. They do not need, and are harmed by, a marked and/or subjective reluctance to consider any facts or argument that do not hold Australia to fault, or which are primarily motivated by suspicion and hatred of Australia’s current government, other national institutions or the commonsense of the Australian people.

***

Ron Jones

Oh Dearie me — how absolutely twee ,

Mary, Marg, Kay – ‘n’ Marilee.

They “finger wag” in chorus

We’re holier than tho’us

“The Tony Kevin Ladies Auxiliary”

Upon what basis do these ladies arrive at the view that they are such wonderfully moral people – when, on the slightest pretext they are prepared to condemn others (e.g. our servicemen and women ) as malicious evil-doers. There is something very “black” in their own mindset.

I can only hope that Tony Kevin squirmed with embarrassment upon reading their final priggish lines : “The 353 believed in Australia but Australia did not believe in them -they were denied in death as they were in life ….. Tony Kevin was the sole advocate of the people of SIEV-Xand he has risked everything to seek the truth”.

Hallelujah! The next Messiah has arrived.