Crikey's Take On SIEVX
by Marg Hutton 6 August 2002
Today Crikey has a piece penned by one of the crew of the P3 Orion's addressing 'conspiracy theories' surrounding SIEVX. Some of the information offered by this insider is very valuable and tackles some concerns raised by Tony Kevin and others on 3 July about flight tracks and other matters.
But when 'AussieP3Guy' wades into the 'international waters versus indonesian waters' debate his contribution is of far less worth.
It should be pointed out that none of the critics as far as we are aware has ever suggested that SIEVX sank in the vicinity of 12 nautical miles from Indonesia. Rather, figures that have been proferred range from 50 to 80 nautical miles from the coast of Java, well inside the Operation Relex surveillance zone.
And aside from the question of whether the Navy could have done something if SIEVX was in international waters, there is the other very troubling concern about how and why the Prime Minister came to be insisting over and over again that SIEVX sank in Indonesian waters when all reliable evidence indicates that this was not the case.
The 'conspiracy theory' here is that the the sinking of SIEVX was consistent with the Government policy of repelling asylum seekers and convenient for the Government as a circuit breaker in the people smuggling racket. Whether or not the Government contributed to the sinking in any way - either by omission or commission - it clearly benefited from it. Just eight days after the sinking Defence was attributing the sharp decline in asylum seeker vessels to the loss of SIEVX...
- Not all conspiracy theories pushed by Labor staffers hang true ~ P3 Orion Crewmember
(A defence insider who cannot be identifed has shot a few holes in the SIEX X [sic] conspiracy theory being pushed by Tony Kevin, the former diplomat now working for Labor Foreign Affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd.)
I am a P3 Orion crewmember. As a result a lot of my time is spent searching for SIEVS. I may have even been in the area north of Christmas Island around the time of the infamous SIEV X. I followed the link to the SIEVX website in one of your recent sealed sections. There are plenty of issues raised there which sound like the work of a fertile imagination with a view to conspiracy theories, however most of these go to levels far above my head.
One area of conspiracy theory I can rebut however, is the slanted questions raised about the "suspicious" activities of the P3s. I don't wish to add directly to that site, but since you guys lead me there, and you've been pushing the whole issue, I thought you might like to hear the other side of that part of the story at least...[Full Report]
Other SIEVX News
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