The Sunday program’s investigative reporter Ross Coulthart reported on Australia’s “disruption” of asylum seeker boats from Indonesia on Sunday. His report is at sunday. Phillip Adam’s interview with Ross and SIEV-X whistleblower Tony Kevin is on Radio National’s Late Night Live at 4pm. For all the news on SIEV-X, go to sievx

Today, Tam Long critiques Tony Kevin’s analysis of the SIEV-X mystery in SIEV-X: mystery unsolved.

Pamphleteer polemics

By Tam Long

I normally enjoy reading the various contributors to your on-line discussions but I am deeply troubled by the latest contribution from Tony Kevin regarding our navy’s activities off northern Australia and the tragic circumstances of SIEV-X.

During historiography lectures my old history professor at uni taught me that in the choice between conspiracy and cock-up always put your money on cock-up – particularly in democratic societies and especially in ones where they play cricket.

Tony Kevin’s “paper” entitled “The Story of SIEV-X” is not up to academic standards in its research, analysis and argument. It is really the polemics of a pamphleteer rather than an objective account or an objective intellectual exploration of an important public issue.

Tony uses very emotive and slanted terms throughout and frequently ignores possible or likely alternatives and interpretations that would be contrary to the narrative he constructs and the line he pushes.

This begins with his use of the term “436 asylum seekers” in his first sentence. Why seize on this term rather than “smuggled people” or “would-be asylum seekers”, etc, or a neutral term such as “passengers”. His blanket assumption that they were all legitimate “asylum seekers” is just as wrong as the opposite assumption that they were all “bogus asylum seekers”, although, in fact, the UNHCR figures would indicate most of the 436 were not genuine. More to the point, irrespective of how many of them were or were not real refugees, they were all smuggled by an international ring of people smugglers.

Right from the beginning of his paper he fails to acknowledge the centrality of the regional people smuggling crisis to the issues he ostensibly wishes to discuss.

A few lines later he refers to another 353 “asylum seekers” on SIEV-X as having “drowned in international waters” (the actual location is not really known or knowable but was probably outside Indonesian territorial waters). However Tony steers clear of mentioning that this was almost certainly within Indonesia’s international zone of search and rescue responsibility.

Tony then goes on to say that SIEV-X was “almost certainly sabotaged” with the inference later in the paper that this occurred before departure from Indonesia at Australian instigation. There is no evidence for this and commonsense and the rational actor paradigm in international relations argue against it strongly. Is it not far more likely that the boat sank because it was so criminally overloaded by the people smugglers (and the bribed Indonesian officials in their pay) who seemingly forced the passengers aboard at gunpoint? Why does Tony not mention this real probability with the same certainty he alleges a far more unlikely sabotage?

He then goes on to describe Australian actions to combat people smuggling in very emotive and factually incorrect terms. He misdescribes naval boarding parties armed for their own protection as “armed assault teams”. He alleges that “repeated volleys of cannon and machine gun fire” are used. Apart from the impossibility of firing volleys from the single gun carried on most Australian warships, would it not be better to have accurately noted that interception of people smuggling vessels can involve a graduated series of steps that escalate in line with the degree of non-cooperation shown by the vessel intercepted (in the same way it does for fishing poachers or whalers in our EEZ or drug smugglers in our 12-mile limit).

And why is it that Tony then goes on to describe the “asylum seekers” as having the “courage to disable their boats”? Given their motive (emotional blackmail of Australia), and his earlier use of the word “sabotage”, why does Tony not use the word “sabotage” instead of “disable” in this instance? This is a clear example of the bias that saturates Tony Kevin’s paper.

He then goes on to accurately describe SIEV 4 as unseaworthy but fails to make the obvious connection with its eventual complete sabotage by its occupants, nor ask the question as to why its occupants chose to accept such an obviously risky illegal passage to Australia in such an unseaworthy craft in the first place. Tony then draws a longer bow by describing the obvious legal requirement to keep the passengers on the boat for as long as possible as somehow a “criminally irresponsible order”, before omitting to mention that it was the naval party aboard who provided the (ample) 60 minutes warning he describes to evacuate the boat. Tony completely ignores the huge volume of evidence, including videos, that shows the main danger to the passengers was their own attempts to hasten the sinking of the boat during their rescue by HMAS Adelaide.

In the next few paragraphs Tony sprays more emotive terms such as “contemptuous of their responsibility”, “left to drown”, etc, without any attempt at substantiation or objective argument.

Tony somewhat strangely ascribes Indonesia’s shock at SIEV-X simply to reports that the sinking happened in Indonesia’s national waters. Would it not be just as likely or even more likely, for example, that Indonesian concern was because of the way that SIEV-X was loaded at gunpoint in Indonesia before it sank? Or that, as no-one disputes that it sank in Indonesia’s zone of search and rescue responsibility but Indonesia did nothing to assist, the Indonesian authorities were deeply embarrassed? Or even because, as many of the rescued passengers said, after their boat sank they were surrounded by boats with searchlights (presumably Indonesian navy or police as we know no Australian vessels were anywhere near there) that did nothing to help them?

Tony then continues to weave his particular disparate and often contradictory threads by using more emotive and slanted terms – “official versions of truth”, “gross moral failure”, “duty of care betrayed”, etc, – before making the surprising claim that these “helpless men, women and children … had effectively put their lives in the hands of Australia’s border protection authorities”. Silly me, like most people I had assumed that they had put their trust in the people smugglers, but Tony Kevin with his clairvoyance seems to know more than anyone could possibly know of the situation and their intentions.

Of course Tony is careful not to mention the real gross moral failure of the Indonesian authorities for encouraging people smuggling, not stamping out the involvement of their police in forcing passengers on to the boat, or not reacting to a vessel in distress in their search and rescue zone. Why is it that Tony cannot bring himself to regard the people smugglers as criminals or indeed to blame them for anything? Why he doesn’t even condemn them, from his own professed viewpoint, as parasites exploiting poor refugees? Perhaps it is for the same reason that Tony’s paper never once mentions the very high percentage of his claimed “asylum seekers” whose claims to refugee status are subsequently found to be unfounded by the UNHCR or IOM.

In discussing the “ill-fated voyage of SIEV-X”, Tony goes on to admit that the “overloading took place under armed duress by uniformed policemen”. Funny how Tony’s account conspicuously misses the word “Indonesian” before the word “policemen”. He then concedes that the nearest Australian ship was some 150 miles away from SIEV-X when it sank, but his mention of survivor accounts contains no mention of their descriptions they were surrounded by boats who shone searchlights on them in the water but then sailed away. Even if these accounts are false or mistaken, surely they deserve some mention?

Tony then goes on to accuse Prime Minister Howard of various lies, especially in regard to the location of SIEV-X’s sinking. It would clearly appear, however, that Tony puts too much emphasis on the initial belief by many Australian officials that the SIEV sank in Indonesian waters. He therefore is wrong to describe bureaucratic and political confusion as to the location as “evasion”. It is far more likely than any other explanation that the confusion as to location is simply caused by genuinely conflicting information and problems with the passage of information rather than any negligence or conspiracy. Tony also keeps using the disingenuous phrase that the vessel sank in “international waters” rather than the far more accurate “international waters within Indonesia’s zone of search and rescue responsibility” with or without the helpful orientation explanation that this was just off the southern coast of Java.

A real long bow is then strung and plucked by Tony. His whole following argument is seemingly centred on Operation Relex meaning that Australia should constantly patrol, in a saturated fashion, the waters between Australia and its neighbours so as to guarantee that any vessel in distress that might have been heading to Australia or near Australia (even without telling us) would be rescued, even where the vessel had disobeyed international law and practice in its voyage planning, etc, and might be actively seeking to avoid detection. Tony ignores that such a ludicrous requirement would be contrary to international law and practice as well as commonsense. Despite this astounding supposition as to Australia’s responsibilities, Tony then has the effrontery to describe Indonesia’s search and rescue responsibilities as only “nominal”. Surely what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Tony then goes on to misunderstand and misconstrue Australia’s attempts to counter people smuggling. Even though this is a wholly legitimate law enforcement activity (both nationally and internationally) he makes the supposedly breathtaking observation that AFP and DIMA cooperation with Indonesian authorities is a “secret” involving “paid informants” and “intelligence operatives”, and is therefore somehow nefarious. I would have thought that many law enforcement activities were carried out secretly in order to stop the criminals finding out about the investigation until the evidence was gathered and/or the criminals in question were caught. Maybe Tony Kevin’s experience as a middle ranking diplomat has allowed him to know more about effective police work than the police?

Incredibly, Tony then goes on to blame the Australian law enforcement agencies for the later sinking of SIEV-X because its “life-threatening departure was not impeded” by their activities in Indonesia. Once again he lets the Indonesian authorities concerned off scot free, especially those Indonesian Police who seem to have forcibly loaded the vessel. Tony Kevin appears to be arguing, somewhat paradoxically, that SIEV departures from Indonesia are really Australia’s fault.

In the very next paragraph he completely ignores that the AFP have no jurisdiction in a foreign country and blames them for not being “in control of what Indonesian police and others in Indonesia were doing”. Surely an ex-diplomat should have a better understanding of jurisdictional matters generally and the difficulties of international police liaison in particular.

Tony then moves his paper into “Elvis lives and has left the building” territory by inferring that SIEVs break down so often because Australia somehow sabotages their boats in Indonesia. Is it not far more likely that the breakdowns are the individual or collective result of poorly maintained boats, weather, unskilled crew and/or sabotage by the passengers as part of the emotional blackmail that they are coached in making by the people smugglers? Why is it that Australia is always at fault? How is it, according to Tony Kevin, that Australia can be so ubiquitous but so incompetent at the same time (but yet keep complex conspiracies a secret)?

He caps off this astounding diversion into paranoid conspiracy theory by suggesting that there is “no more convincing alternative explanation … for the ominous departure circumstances of SIEV X”. Maybe if Tony knew more about Indonesia, international law, military procedures, international search and rescue responsibilities and procedures, and the problems of police work, intelligence gathering and analysis, and bureaucracy generally, he would not fall prey to such silly statements and theorising.

Tony’s paper then drifts further off track. The entire section in which he attempts to discuss the handling of the AFP intelligence reporting from Indonesia merely shows his knowledge of intelligence processes must have been gained from reading Second World War spy novels. Tony does not appear to understand that not every national security problem has a foreign intelligence-assisted solution, or that not every knowledge gap can be targeted or answered by intelligence gathering (intentions are notoriously difficult), or that the information that can be gathered is often contradictory or fragmentary, or that intelligence analysis is rarely instantaneous or as timely as desired, or that (as with the case of SIEV X and especially the unknown AFP report of the 18th October) it is very dangerous to objectively analyse or assess the comparative reliability of single reports especially where they are uncorroborated by other means of intelligence gathering. Tony Kevin’s apparent marked ignorance of intelligence theory and practice and his 20/20 hindsight leads him to always assume the worst. It would surely be more probable that the intelligence analysts involved, and the decision makers reacting to that intelligence, were simply doing the best that was possible in difficult circumstances.

This section of Tony Kevin’s paper also contains some startling factual errors and examples of naivete on his part. It is simply wrong to say that Operation Relex never included safety at sea action because we have all seen the videos of Aussie sailors rescuing SIEV passengers in difficult circumstances (including rescuing them from themselves and the consequences of their actions). It is also surely obvious why DIMA and AFP witnesses to the Senate Inquiry could not provide information that was subjudice. It is not “strange obscurity” for there to be some measure of uncertainty about dates and locations.

All Tony’s omissions, conspiracy theories and general misunderstandings and ignorance then lead him off in full pursuit of the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) red herring. His supposition that someone, somewhere coldbloodedly decided to let SIEV-X sink is just simply untenable because it is contrary to the evidence, contrary to reasonable supposition and contrary to how Australian society and governance work.

Firstly, it is simply not possible to permanently monitor all the various ships and aircraft in your international zone of search and rescue responsibility even when they tell you that they are coming and advise you of their planned course and destination (its not a legal or moral responsibility to monitor them either).

Secondly, it is not sensible to launch expensive and complex airborne searches on the basis that a vessel may be moving into your international zone of search and rescue responsibility from an adjoining country’s zone at some unknown time, especially where the vessel’s course, speed, intentions or intended landfall is not known.

Thirdly, even if it was possible to send out search aircraft it is far more likely that no-one at that time made the connections between the separate scraps of information that Tony has tried to string together subsequently.

Fourthly, even if they could have made enough connections they probably could not have done so in time to realise that SIEV-X had sunk or would sink.

Finally, the nature of airborne surveillance planning, tasking and operations needs to be taken into account. In summary, to conserve resources, narrow the area to be checked and focus your search patterns, you patrol out from the adversary’s target (in this case presumably Christmas Island) and wait for them to come to you rather than patrol deep in their territory trying to find their (unknown) start point and subsequent (unknown) route to the target. This latter aspect is probably why no wreckage was sighted by the search aircraft (and they were not apparently looking for wreckage anyway).

Finally, Tony appears not to understand how the armed forces function. The ASTJIC, for example, is not an executive body but a supporting intelligence agency to the joint theatre headquarters in Sydney. Similarly, “NORCOM” in Darwin (actually HQNORCOM) is not subordinate to the ASTJIC as Tony describes. Tony makes the accusation that “action was frozen” at “NORCOM” but all the published evidence clearly points towards a decision being made that no search and rescue action was necessary because the intelligence available was so fragmentary and contradictory. Simple deductive reasoning using all the published accounts would tend to drive objective analysis along the same path. That HQNORCOM might have been able to realise that SIEV-X had sank (although no-one else did either) is tragic but hardly the stuff that merits Tony Kevin’s claims of coldblooded conspiracy and skulduggery.

Tony’s claim that SIEV-X sank in NORCOM’s search area is probably incorrect. Firstly, no-one appears to know where the SIEV actually sank. Secondly, it would be most unlikely that Indonesian territorial waters were within such an Australian responsibility and the boat may have sunk within those waters. Thirdly, in terms of search and rescue responsibility, it is unlikely that NORCOM could subsume Indonesia’s responsibility for such activities inside Indonesia’s international search and rescue zone, and all reputable sources appear to have assessed that the SIEV was within the Indonesian zone when it sank and was probably still well within Indonesian territorial waters (probably even within sight of the coast of Java) when it struck trouble.

Perhaps I could finish my brief criticism of Tony Kevin’s paper and theory by asking him six questions that any reputable paper on this subject would have covered in detail.

* Why does his paper not concentrate on or at least begin with the key issue involved – international people smuggling?

* Why does he simply assume that all “asylum claimants” are genuine when the evidence strongly indicates that most are not?

* Why does he never apportion any real responsibility or blame to Indonesia for any of the people smuggling problem in general or the SIEV-X and Tampa incidents in particular?

* Why does he never address the question why Australia and New Zealand are the only signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention in the whole Asia-Pacific area, and why after 52 years do our neighbours still refuse to shoulder their international responsibilities in this regard (and apparently escape any condemnation for it)?

* Why does he have such an Australia-centric view in blaming only Australia for seemingly every ramification of what is actually a regional and wider problem?

* Would he be willing to see the longstanding international law regarding the interception of slave-carrying vessels extended to people smuggling vessels (so any naval vessel could intervene anywhere to stamp out the trade)?

Margo, may I close by suggesting that the credibility of your online column depends on broadening the contributors you publish and keeping them to accepted standards of objective scholarship. Reinforcing the prejudices of a sectional interest is surely not professional journalism or in keeping with the AJA code of ethics.