Milan Kundera said that the struggle of the people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting – which is why I’m writing this post.

“My wife and daughters were looking at me and crying as the boat capsized. I lost three children and my wife, but the 150 children are like my own too. Those who perished with their families have found reprieve, but as for us, we are mere empty shells, our souls went with them. Every time I saw a child I could not differentiate between it and my children. Anywhere I placed my arm, a drowned child or woman would emerge and lift my arm and the surviving women would cry more. My wife and children stayed under the boat – they never came out.” [HASSAN JASSEM](http://www.sievx.com/archives/2003_07-08/20030707.shtml)

I’ve been following the [SievX](http://www.sievx.com) tragedy for a couple of years now. On October 18 or 19 a boat designed to carry 100 people sank in [international waters](http://sievx.com/images/MapSeries1small.jpg) with nearly 400 people onboard. 146 children, 142 women and 65 men drowned. Although about 120 people initially survived the sinking, only 44 were rescued by an Indonesian fishing boat after spending up to 20 hours in the water. More first hand survivor accounts are [here](http://www.sievx.com/articles/disaster/KeysarTradTranscript.html) – please read them.

The boat sank right in the search area of Operation Relex which had just been setup by the Howard government after the Tampa rescue. Australian Airforce Orion P3 surveillance planes flew over this area at least three times a day in search patterns and 5 extra navy ships also patrolled the area. Immediately after news of the tragedy broke John Howard stated that the ship sunk in Indonesian waters and was therefore not an Australian problem – he went onto to win the 2001 federal election. It was only some years later that the government started saying that the boat had actually sank in international waters. In fact the 353 people drowned in an area the John Howard himself had described as being under “saturation surveillance” (Brendan Nicholson, Age, September 2, 2001).

It gets worse. It [turns out](http://sievx.com/articles/challenging/20020325CTTonyKevin.html) that the boat had been stripped of all registration and identification marks, set to sea with a long crack in the hull and the refugees report being loaded onto the boat at gunpoint by Indonesian military or police.

So what gives? The Australian Federal Police knew the boat was coming and there were navy boats in the area – why wasn’t the boat intercepted? Why hasn’t the government (AFP) released the full list of the names of the survivors and victims? Why did the government maintain that the first they knew of the existence of the boat was when it sank – which was a monstrous lie soon exposed in the Certain Maritime Incident enquiry? They knew when it left, how many and who was on it. They knew it was overloaded and in danger of sinking. They know who drowned and won’t tell anyone. Why not? What is served by keeping the death list secret after four years?

[Tony Kevin's](http://www.tonykevin.com/psievx.html)
[book](http://www.safecom.org.au/tkevin-book.htm) offers a full account of the evidence that SIEV X was expected by the People Smuggling Taskforce in Canberra to arrive at Christmas Island over the weekend 20-22 October, that detailed intelligence reports had been coming down to Canberra from AFP on it, and that it had even been given a name, SIEV 8. The senate has called for an independant judicial inquiry each year for three years now and our “relaxed and comfortable” government ignores it each time.

In a Dateline program about SIEVX Greg Humphries of the Australian immigration department stated clearly that our government had them sinking boats in Malaysia to prevent them coming here. And there’s this from a [Channel 9 Sunday report](http://sievx.com/articles/challenging/20020901_SundayEnniss.html) into Mr John Enniss who was acting as a people smuggler while working for the Australian Federal Police in Indonesia:

“Last year Enniss boasted to myself and two other colleagues about how he had paid Indonesian locals on four or five occasions to scuttle people-smuggling boats with passengers on them. When we reacted with horror he was unrepentant, saying the boats were sunk close to land so everyone got off safely.”

According to the [Department of Immigration and All Other People We Don't Like,](http://www.immi.gov.au/facts/pdf/74a_boatarrivals.pdf) since 1989 13,593 people have arrived illegally by boat in Australia. Of these, 9,490 were granted visas. That’s 906 boat people landing per year over 15 years, hardly a flood – equivalent to two 747’s full of New Zealand and British immigrants. Of course boat people don’t look or sound like us white folk, do they?

[A lot happened](http://www.tonykevin.com/RawNerve.html) in the month leading up to the sinking of SievX and all of it during an election campaign. Palapa, the disabled adrift boat rescued by Tampa, nearly sank in a fierce storm the night before the resuce, with over 400 people on board. It had been twice spotted on the previous day by an Australian Coastwatch aircraft. The pilot reported the passengers waved clothing to indicate their distress, but no rescue boat was sent out from Christmas Island just 60 miles away on that day – a clear violation of Australia’s legal and ethical rescue at sea obligations. Eventually Arnie The Good rescued these people and the Australian government greeted them with SAS troops – made great TV footage.

Under direct orders from Canberra, over 200 people were left on board a crippled, unseaworthy SIEV 4 (Olong) during a 22 hour circular holding tow by HMAS Adelaide, just outside Christmas Island’s Australian territorial seas, When the boat suddenly began to founder, the people were instructed to jump into the water. They were then left up to 51 minutes in the water or in Adelaide’s rubber dinghies before Adelaide received permission to allow them onboard.

Arguments about reckless parents and queue jumpers don’t matter one iota here. What matters in these cases is that we, as a nation, did not do our best to help people in need. It’s that simple. If the cost of helping illegal immigrants is that it will only encourage more, then so be it. Contrary to what a small, lying man said some years ago – we do not, and can not, control how people arrive here. We can control how we treat them. John Howard has used refugees as political pawns and scapegoats. He has played with people’s lives to win votes, people with no power and often no state for support. A truly despicable act that reflects poorly on us all.

“…. the 150 children kept floating up looking for air to breathe inside their cabin – more water went in and they were drowned. We were a group of 28 doctors from Khuzistan. We lived in Iran for 11 years, only 5 remained. There were some children and some women amongst the group.” [Dr Haydar from Khuzistan](http://www.sievx.com/archives/2003_07-08/20030703.shtml)

“I boarded the boat with my wife and four children and also my brother, brother’s wife and two children. One of my children survived, my wife, my brother and family all drowned. My brother screamed out to be rescued but I could not help him. He was too far from the children. One of my other children kept crying for water until the morning when he died of thirst. I kept two of my children on my shoulders all night. It was raining heavily, I did not know where my wife was. One of the children died in the morning from thirst … ” [FAWZI QASIM](http://www.sievx.com//archives/2003_09-10/20030911.shtml)