BOOK REVIEW: "An angry take on the deaths of 353 boat people"

- Canberra Times, 4 September 2004, ‘Panorama’ page 19

[REFUGEES/POLITICS]

A Certain Maritime Incident – the sinking of SIEV X , by Tony Kevin, Scribe.

320 pp $32.95

Reviewer: PATRICK WELLER

THE RESUSCITATION of the children-overboard allegations has brought the events of October 2001 back into the spotlight. That case revolved around the issue of what the Government knew and whether the public was misled during the election campaign. Fortunately, because of the skill of the Australian navy, no-one died.

But in another case, far more tragic later that month, a refugee vessel sank without any rescue vessel available and 353 people died. For the past three years Tony Kevin has sought to keep the attention of the Australian people focussed on their fate.

Kevin is angry and this is an angry book. He believes that the sinking of SIEV X (X for unknown, a title he gave it and which stuck) was "a managed event, rather than an accidental one: the boat had been intended to sink, thereby creating a major loss of life and a major deterrent signal against people smuggling".

If he is right, then those who sank the boat committed murder. He wants to ask what the Australian Government knew and whether it was involved. He hoped the case would become an Australian Watergate; he regrets that it has not. That can be either because the crimes were covered up or because he is wrong. Most think the latter. Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty told the Senate that all the information that might have saved the boat was obtained after the event, too late for a rescue operation. David Marr and Marion Wilkinson in Dark Victory conclude that Australia did not kill the refugees. The Senate inquiry into children overboard found no evidence to support Kevin’s propositions, even if some of the senators were highly critical of the evidence, or lack of it, given to them by defence personnel.

Kevin has no patience for those who cannot see the case he puts. He is frustrated by their inability to see the pattern of behaviour he presents and castigates, even ridicules, their obduracy. The Senate report in particular is attacked for failing to ask all the obvious questions that he had supplied.

So how good is Kevin’s case? He does not claim to have proof that Australian intervention led to the sinking. Rather he seeks to determine what happened by calculating the highest probability hypothesis that best explains the accumulation of facts.

At times, when unconvinced by a series of stories, he rejects them and replaces them with an account that no-one has so far proposed, and for which there is no direct evidence. Fishing boats, he suggests, were dispatched to the location of the sinking to ensure some refugees were rescued to tell the tale (p84). The RAAF records were doctored to remove evidence of where the surveillance flights went, to hide any unreported sightings of the rescue (p196).

More often he seeks to show the inconsistency of the explanations provided, to suggest there is more to the real case than is being presented. He asks a series of questions, invariably loaded, to cast doubt and suspicion. Indeed, if all the stories presented by Kevin are true then there is a network of actors in two countries, from police to serving officers to officials to smugglers, who know more than they have said, and who in effect are covering up murder.

If such a dastardly plan had been concocted, could it be kept quiet? Not all would be constrained by military discipline. Some would be all too willing to sell such a story. Yet no-one has come forward to provide any corroboration for the darker images that Kevin seeks to portray.

Inconsistencies in evidence certainly, questions left dangling, stories that may be true not tested. But can it add up to more than a tragic accident? As the recent revelations on children overboard show, there may be evidence that will yet come to light.

So far, given the choice between the extensive sting and ensuing cover-up on the one hand, and a tragic stuff-up on the other, I tend towards Murphy in still being persuaded by the latter. Even after reading this book I can accept that it was a terrible and avoidable tragedy, without being persuaded that it was more than that. I may be too ingenuous, or too cynical, to believe that all those involved would keep quiet about mass murder.

At times this is a hard book to read; part detailed evidence, part speculation, part condemnation. In the end the message is not clear, because Kevin himself is not clear if, and to what extent, Australia was involved. There are questions, details and suggestions. It is an unfinished prosecution case.

The anger suggests Kevin will not let the case rest here. His dedication to the cause is rare, his zeal admirable. Few of us have his staying power and dedication to finding the truth. He will keep digging for clear evidence to implicate the Government. I fear he may continue to find it frustrating.

 

 

Patrick Weller is professor of politics and deputy director of the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance at Griffith University.