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The SIEVX: conspiracy or tragedy?

By Emmy Silvius - posted Friday, 19 September 2008


SIEVX, or Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel X, is the name officially designated in Canberra for a rundown old Indonesian fishing boat that was used in October 2001 for smuggling people from Iraq and Afghanistan on the last part of their journey to Australia.

SIEVX was the 12th and last vessel used to transport desperate people seeking a new life in a country they envisioned would give them a fair go. Their dreams were to be shattered before they set foot in Australia. Not only that, the concept of a “fair-go” was thrown out the window the day these people tried to enter our country legally. Why? What was their crime?

In the early morning of October 18, 2001, 421 people mainly from Iraq and Afghanistan were packed onto an old wooden fishing vessel that was a mere 19½ metres long and 4 metres wide. Most of the passengers were women and children who eagerly wished to be reunited with their husbands and fathers. These men were either being held in detention centres in Australia or had been granted Temporary Protection Visas. Indonesian armed police supervised the loading of the dilapidated and overcrowded vessel. One man who attempted to disembark with his family was pistol-whipped and made to stay. A patrol boat escorted the leaky vessel out of the port of Lampong. Later that day another patrol boat sped past them.

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Not long into the journey the boat started taking in water. Around 3.00pm the next day the engines failed and the boat sank in international waters between Indonesia and Australia. This particular area was patrolled daily by Australian border protection surveillance aircraft.

About 100 people survived the capsizing and desperately clung onto whatever was within their reach. There were only 60 lifejackets. It took up to 21 hours of floating helplessly in the high seas before “miraculously” a couple of Indonesian fishing boats happened to find them. These fishing boats were 60 nautical miles out to sea, which is much further than the local boats usually went.

They would have been confronted by an horrific scene - especially the sight of the body of a tiny baby, born during the nightmare of the sinking, still joined by its umbilical cord to its dead mother, afloat in the water. Every single survivor testified later that they saw lights of up to three vessels close by in the night to which they called out. However, the vessels just turned around leaving the people to drown. In total 353 people died (146 children, 142 women and 65 men) and a mere 44 survived (33 men, 9 women and 2 children). The survivors were immediately returned to Jakarta. Interestingly they did not arrive at their destination until 6.00pm on October 22. This raises questions as to why such a long route was chosen for their return journey.

The fact that all survivors reported seeing lights in the night certainly adds to the many suspicions surrounding this disaster. Questions relating to this, as well as the possibility of the boat having been sabotaged, are discussed by Tony Kevin in his book A Certain Maritime Incident (see especially pages 57-75).

Australian politics at the time

This tragedy initially received minimal media coverage as at the time much discussion was still taking place on the “children overboard incident”. This particular maritime calamity instigated the launch of a new, severe naval operation by the government - Operation Relex - whose mission was to turn back boats as well as set up a People Smuggling Task Force in the Prime Minister’s own department in Canberra. Its role was to gather all intelligence on people smuggling and co-ordinate Operation Relex.

An enormous amount of resources was used. John Howard promised vastly increased surveillance of the immense area between Indonesia and Australia’s island territories, Christmas Island and Ashmore Reef. In light of this, it seems very odd that the Australian Navy apparently made no attempt to intercept one of the largest ever boats filled with asylum seekers which left Indonesia on that fatal day in October 2001.

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A month prior to this tragedy Howard announced that he had authorised “saturation surveillance” of international waters between Australia and Indonesia. He said: “We don’t, in this nation, sink boats… But we’re certainly talking about acts which are designed to deter and encourage deterrence, and also to enhance the fact that we are quite properly endeavouring to discourage people from setting out in the first place.” Howard refused to say how he would deal with vessels carrying asylum-seekers, except that the Australian Defence Force would act lawfully and decently.

In a Senate CMI Committee Report Senator John Faulkner writes that the then Minister for Immigration, Philip Ruddock, had claimed that physically disrupting the work of people smugglers was one of the main reasons for the decline in asylum seeker boats coming to Australia. The AFP agreed that there were a whole series of methods that could be used to prevent the departure of the vessel and that it was the “discretion of the liaison officer in Jakarta as to the best method to apply”. There may be disruption of the transport of the passengers to the embarkation point, for instance, or the movement of the boat to that embarkation point.

AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty confirmed the more active nature of the disruption activities, when he said that their purpose is to, “prevent the departure of a vessel … either by the arrest of individuals or by the detention of individuals, or by ensuring that the individuals don’t reach the point of embarkation if that was known”. He explained that the AFP provided equipment, training and travel costs to those Indonesian authorities involved in disruption activities. For instance, the AFP’s Law Enforcement Cooperation Program provided training and equipment to the Indonesian National Police. Five teams of the Indonesian National Police have been established through this program and are directly involved in disruption activity.

So far none of the Ministers involved in the people smuggling disruption program has categorically ruled out if the disruption program in Indonesia ever involved anyone sabotaging a people smuggling vessel.

Issam Ismail, a SIEVX survivor stated: “The Indonesian Police were there. They were carrying automatic guns. They were so comfortable. They were the ones who gave the signals with their torches. Turning on the torch was a signal to send out people. Turning off the torch meant stop. That was how it was done. We saw them with our own eyes. They had weapons we had never seen before. The latest brands.”

It is quite extraordinary that no official inquiry has taken place into this horrific disaster other than the limited examination by the Senate Select Committee on “A Certain Maritime Incident” (CMI). The first recommendation of the CMI Report was for a judicial inquiry into people smuggling disruption activities undertaken in Indonesia by Australian and Indonesian police. Needless to say, the Howard Government totally ignored this advice as well as subsequent Senate motions calling for judicial inquiries into disruptive activities and the sinking of SIEVX.

This has to be the lowest point of Australian politics. How is it possible that a government can get away with covering up the largest Australian-related civilian catastrophe in the history of this country? Many documents have been branded “confidential” and many contradictory stories have been presented to the public ever since the day the government claimed SIEVX sank in Indonesian waters.

Many questions remain unanswered

  • How is it possible that the DFAT cable contained such detailed information on the route taken by the SIEVX and where it sank? The whole voyage is described from the departure at 1.30am on October 18 to the arrival of the rescued survivors in Jakarta at 6.00pm on Monday, October 22, 2001.
  • Could the mystery vessels that appeared in the night have belonged to the Indonesian police or military?
  • How did the Australian Federal Police have such detailed photos (including an aerial shot) of the SIEVX?
  • Why was Abu Quassey (the people smuggler involved with the SIEVX) not brought to justice in Australia for his role in the 353 deaths?
  • By late 2000 the AFP had set up a functioning people-smuggling disruption program in Indonesia. What exactly did this entail?
  • Was the SIEVX deliberately sabotaged?
  • What knowledge did the Government have surrounding the SIEVX prior to its departure?

Australia has a moral obligation to address these unresolved questions surrounding SIEVX and the issue of the people smuggling disruption program. This is not only necessary for the survivors who are constantly haunted by visions of that perilous event and the grieving relatives of those who drowned, but also for the conscience of Australian citizens who are concerned that our previous government may somehow have been partly responsible for this tragedy.

Whether there was any knowledge or none at all within the government ranks, the suspicions will remain until such time as there is a judicial inquiry into the whole heart-rending saga surrounding the SIEVX. With the change of Government we - now more than ever - have the opportunity to bring to light the buried truths surrounding this tragedy. As global citizens we have a responsibility to be alert, aware and open - especially when it concerns decision-making tactics by our politicians. If these affect one of us, they affect all of us.

Recommended Reading:

Senate CMI Committee Report - the relevant chapters on SIEVX are referred to on the SIEVX site.

Tony Kevin, A Certain Maritime Incident, (Melbourne: Scribe Publications, 2004)

Aerial surveillance maps on the Sydney Morning Herald site, here, here and here.

Ghassan Nakhoul, “The Five Mysteries of SIEV X,” SBS Radio, October 22, 2002.

Marg Hutton, SIEVX and the DFAT Cable: The Conspiracy of Silence, published on May 20, 2003.

CMI Committee Report October 22, 2002.

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This is an edited version of an article first published in Social Policy Connections (PDF 745KB), September 2008.



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About the Author

Emmy Silvius is a member and employee of Social Policy Connections in Melbourne. She is studying for her Bachelor of Theology Degree at YTU in Box Hill and is most passionate about many issues relating to social justice, particularly in the area of trafficked persons and asylum seekers. She was part of the establishing group of Sanctuary Northern Rivers in Lismore (NSW) and assisted in the settlement of the first Sudanese refugee family to arrive in Lismore.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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