Asylum-seekers lost at sea but not forgotten

The memorial to the hundreds of people who died on the SIEV-X boat in 2001 will be opened in Canberra on Sunday, although half the names of the dead are missing.

Australian Federal Police refused yesterday to make the names public, citing continuing investigations into people-smuggling.

Memorial cofounder Steve Biddulph said he was encouraged that police believed the sinking was still worth investigating.

"We want Australians to learn about SIEV-X and remember it," he said. "If it had been a jumbo jet that had gone down with 350 mothers and children, it would have been a different story ... and if it had been westerners."

The Indonesian fishing boat code named SIEV-X was carrying asylum-seekers, mostly women and children, heading from Java to Christmas Island when it capsized in international waters in October 2001.

The sinking was the subject of a Senate inquiry into what the Federal Government knew about the vessel's course, its location when it sank, suggestions the navy had been sabotaging asylum-seeker boats and why Australia did not try to rescue the survivors.

The memorial in Weston Park will be opened by ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope. It consists of 353 painted poles one for each person who died on the boat arranged in lines that form the outline of the actual dimensions of the boat.

Last year, on the fifth anniversary of the sinking, more than 2000 people were at the site to see the poles raised temporarily.

This year the ACT Government has granted permission to erect the memorial for six weeks.

Mr Biddulph, a child psychologist and author, said it was time for police to issue the names of those who died since court cases involving the people- smugglers had concluded.

In January 2003 the AFP confirmed to a Senate estimates committee that it had lists of those thought to have been on board but would not disclose the names for operational reasons.

An AFP spokesman said yesterday that police still had an ongoing investigation into the alleged organisers of the venture.

"Because of the whole circumstances of this ongoing matter, it is not appropriate to release any list," he said.

Mr Biddulph said he had not been aware police were still investigating SIEV-X, until the AFP response was relayed to him last night. "That's good and important and we certainly welcome further investigations into how the voyage came to take place," he said. "We'll just keep the pressure on and do our best to find out [the names].

"We are not alleging any complicity on anyone's part about what happened, we simply don't know."