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How many of the 1500 asylum seeker lives lost at sea since 2001 could have been saved?
Zahra (6), Fatima (7) and Eman (9) - the daughters of Sondos Ismail and Ahmed Alzalimi -  three of the 146 children who lost their lives when the vessel that has become known as SIEVX foundered in international waters en route to Christmas Island on 19 October 2001.
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MEDIA

GOVERNMENT
Hidden In Plain View:
The BASARNAS File On SIEVX

by Marg Hutton
15 May 2005

"...media 'expert' analysis" turns out to be official BASARNAS document

BASARNAS logo clearly visible on document previously referred to as 'Jakarta Harbourmaster's Report ' regarding the rescue of SIEVX survivors

Up until now no-one has drawn attention to a small, partially obscured logo on the corner of what has become known as the 'Jakarta Harbourmaster's Report' (JHR) concerning the rescue of the SIEVX survivors. SIEVX.com has recently discovered that this logo indicates that the Harbourmaster's report is in fact an official document of the Indonesian search and rescue authority BASARNAS. (See BASARNAS logo taken from their website below)

Official logo of BASARNAS, Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency - from BASARNAS website

The Harbourmaster's report was first brought to light by the SBS current affairs program, Dateline and broadcast in two of their special features on SIEVX that went to air on 22 May and 17 July 2002. The report contains information on the rescue of SIEVX survivors and includes the exact location where an Indonesian fishing boat rescued 44 of the survivors on 20 October 2001 - 07 40 00S / 105 09 00E - about 51.5 nautical miles off the coast of West Java, well inside Australia's Operation Relex surveillance zone.

I have written before of how the Gates Review of Intelligence pertaining to SIEVX which was submitted to the CMI Committee in July 2002 denigrated and grossly misrepresented the Harbourmaster's report. (See 'SIEVX & the DFAT Cable', pp. 18-21) This virtual obliteration of the JHR by Defence was responsible in part for the CMI Committee reaching the false conclusion that the sinking position of SIEVX was unknowable. (Professor of Oceanography at Flinders University, Matthias Tomczak has demonstrated that if you know the rescue position and the time of both the rescue and the sinking it is possible to assess the distance that survivors drifted and thereby greatly narrow the probable area in which the sinking occurred.)

There is a certain irony in the fact that during the period under investigation by the CMI Committee - August to November 2001 in which more than a dozen SIEVs set sail for Christmas Island or Ashmore Reef - Australia was desperately trying to bat any possible rescue of these boats to BASARNAS, but when a SIEV actually sank with major loss of life and serious questions later arose in Australia about the location of the sinking it appears our officials failed to contact BASARNAS to see what information they held on the matter; or if they did contact the Indonesian agency they decided to first ignore and later to discredit the information it provided.

Despite the best efforts of Opposition Senator Jacinta Collins and others to pursue Australian agencies through the tortuous maze of evasions and lies concerning their knowledge of the JHR and sinking position of SIEVX, they have so far managed to evade accountability. A key part of this evasion has been denigration and dismissal of the JHR as a source. Now that the JHR is clearly established as an official BASARNAS document, they can no longer duck and weave.

 http://sievx.com/archives/2005/20050515.shtml ( 14506) | ©Copyright Marg Hutton ~ sievx.com / siev-x.com 2002-2014