While many refugee rights advocates and legal commentators were
busily taking up positions on who should take responsibility for two boatloads
of asylum seekers marooned in boats in Indonesian ports on
interrupted attempted journeys to Australia, along comes pure tragedy.
This week's refugee deaths on the high seas, to the west of the Cocos Islands,
remind us of what this is really about: desperate people prepared to
risk their lives in perilous efforts to escape persecution and
hopelessness in their home countries, and to try to build a basis for
new lives for their children. It is about the efforts of our fellow
human beings to survive, not for themselves, but for those who come
after them.
Of a reported 39 (presumably Tamil) people on board a
small vessel that sank en route from Sri Lanka to Western Australia, 27 were
rescued.
Three bodies were retrieved or sighted, and nine are missing,
presumed drowned. The dead or missing include three boys aged 13, 14
and 15. The search for survivors has now ended.
The sinking of this asylum-seeker boat again raises vexed
questions about who is responsible for the safety of life at sea in cases of boats
presumed to be carrying refugee applicants. Responsibility under the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea is unambiguous, and is not lessened even when the
boats in distress are presumed to be asylum-seeker vessels.
In October 2001, Australian and Indonesian maritime safety and border
protection authorities, to their mutual shame, played pass-the-parcel games with SIEV X, an overloaded and unsafe boat that departed from
Sumatra and sank 30-odd hours later, in international waters but in Indonesia's search and
rescue zone.
According to evidence tendered at the 2003 Senate
Committee enquiry, neither country made serious attempts to locate or help the
passengers who were clearly at risk; 353 people, mostly women
and children, drowned. There are many unanswered questions. This huge
tragedy continues to haunt Australians of conscience.
The latest tragic event is uncomplicated by issues of territorial
seas, search and rescue zones, or responsibilities of those conducting border protection military operations. It happened in very
remote international waters far to the west of Indonesia, to a boat on
a direct ocean route to Australia, and in Australia's search and
rescue zone.
The boat's distress call alerted nearby commercial
shipping. Australia correctly sent out RAAF Orions to help search for
survivors. The survivors are now being taken to the
processing centre at Christmas Island. It appears that Australia is doing the right things here.
There is no evidence of people smugglers being involved. Peter
Costello draws a long bow in presuming that smugglers provided the boat. It could have been a cooperative venture,
a boat owned and sailed by local Tamil mariners. I do not know what
purpose Costello thinks he serves with this provocative red
herring.
Once they have recovered from their trauma, the survivors will face the processing of their claims for refugee status. One hopes that
what they have endured, in the loss of 12 of their fellow voyagers
(possibly family members), will help
generate a mercifully humane and speedy process.
In the separate continuing dramas of the two groups of people refusing
to disembark from rescue or transfer vessels at Indonesian ports,
there are many complications to be sorted though, and many
conflicting views on what is the right thing to do. But most of all, I
feel relief that these people were not abandoned to die at sea.
It
seems that proper safety of life at sea
procedures were followed in both cases. This is a vast improvement on
the barbarism of the Howard years, and I give Kevin Rudd public credit
for it.
All human life is equally sacred, and the moral and legal obligations
on mariners to save other mariners in distress, whatever the cause,
is one of the things that allows us to call ourselves a civilised
nation. We must never lose sight of those obligations again, no matter
what the pressure.
Tony Kevin is author of A Certain Maritime Incident: The Sinking of SIEV X. Tony will open
an exhibition of paintings by WA artist Nathalie Haymann based on the
sinking of SIEV X, 6.30–8.30 pm, 11 November, at Kidogo Arthouse, Bathers' Beach,
Fishermans' Harbour, off Mews Road, Fremantle (on the beach). The
exhibition will run from 11 to 24 November.
Also, Carmen Lawrence will discuss with Tony his latest book on global warming, Crunch Time, in the Webb Lecture Theatre, University of Western Australia, at 6 pm on 10 November.