Children Overboard Affair
The Children Overboard Affair (mutatis mutandis -over-affair Children jettisoning ), and Children Overboard scandal called, began as the Oct. 6th, 2001 Olong or SIEV 4 , an Indonesian fishing boat made of wood with 219 boat people by on board in international waters the Australian warship HMAS Adelaide was prevented from continuing and was forced to return to Indonesia, which led to her sinking.
The migration and asylum policy in Australia that the former liberal-conservative government since the Tampa affair pursued was, from her Pacific Solution called. Under this policy, Australian warships and aircraft of the Australian Armed Forces and Australian Coast Guard monitor and patrol Australia's maritime border. The ships were under orders to force boats carrying asylum seekers to return or to transport them to camps outside Australian territory in immigration custody in Australia .
In the Children Overboard Affair , leading liberal-conservative government officials such as Australian Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock, Defense Minister Peter Reith and Prime Minister John Howard spread that the boat people on the SIEV had thrown 4 children overboard. This turned out to be false immediately after the official government announcements and was labeled a lies in the press and by the political opposition.
Ship name
In the concept of the Pacific solution, ships that are arrested at sea due to irregular entry are no longer designated and numbered by their original name, but with an acronym SIEV Suspected Irregular Entry Vessel (analogous to suspected irregular entry ). The wooden ship Olong , which was landed in international waters on October 6, 2001, was recorded as SIEV 4 and known in the press.
In the first year of application of a Pacific solution from August to the end of December 2001, there were 14 so-called SIEV incidents, whereby the SIEV X incident on October 19, 2001 ended particularly tragically because when this wooden ship sank south of Java 353 boat people (146 children, 142 women and 65 men drowned.
prehistory
During the Tampa affair , which began on August 24, 2001, Howard's liberal-conservative government either re-enacted or tightened anti-immigration laws. This policy meant that all asylum seekers attempting to reach Australia by ship should be arrested in international waters and prevented from entering Australian territory. Asylum seekers should by no means enter Australian soil to avoid gaining legal entitlement to an asylum procedure. Before reaching Australia, they should either be transported in immigration detention outside the territory to the island of Manus in Papua New Guinea or back to Indonesia or the small island nation of Nauru .
procedure
In the early afternoon of October 6, 2001, the Australian warship HMAS Adelaide stopped an overloaded, barely seaworthy wooden fishing vessel about 190 kilometers from Christmas Island and forced it to return. On the night of October 7th to 8th, 2001, the Adelaide fired several warning shots over the wooden ship and entered it with marines to force the return.
While the Adelaide's crew believed it was time to save these people, the Canberra government was determined that the ship of 223 people, including crew including 56 children, should not reach nearby Christmas Island. The engine of the SIEV 4 failed , probably due to sabotage, but this has not been proven. Thereupon the captain of the Adelaide , Commander Norman Banks, had no choice but to take the SIEV 4 in tow . Under the pull of the tow, the ship broke up after 24 hours and sank. Commander Banks now took up the rescue of the shipwrecked.
The next day, then Prime Minister Howard announced the upcoming elections for the Australian Parliament and then announced that the boat people had threatened to throw children overboard, adding that no people were "of that type" (" no such types ”) in Australia. Three crew members in Australia were sentenced to five years imprisonment in Australia for people smuggling.
Parliamentary inquiries
An initial investigation by a committee of the Australian Senate found that no children were thrown overboard by the SIEV 4 . The evidence presented would not support the allegation made and the photos showing children swimming in the sea were taken after the SIEV 4 sank .
In 2004, the Australian Labor Party sought another investigation of the Children Overboard. Ahead of the investigation, Mike Scrafton, an advisor to Defense Secretary Reith, stated that he stated in a letter dated November 7, 2001 to The Australian newspaper that he had made three phone calls to Howard. He told the Prime Minister in a telephone conversation that nobody in the Defense Ministry shared the view that any child had been thrown overboard on the Olong . In another phone call, he also told Howard that there was no published photo to prove that the boat people had thrown children overboard.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chapter 2 - The 'Children Overboard' Incident , on Australian Parliament , Retrieved December 3, 2019
- ↑ SIEVX Chronology , on SIEVX. Retrieved December 3, 2019
- ↑ Truth overboard - the story did will not go away , of 28 February 2006 on the Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved December 3, 2019
- ↑ John Howard Interview (English), on News.au. Retrieved December 3, 2019
- ↑ The Unthrown Kids. John Howard's "forbidden" kids overboard photos , from 2003, on Safecom. Retrieved December 4, 2019
- ↑ Truth Overboard on Thruthoverboard. Retrieved December 3, 2019
- ↑ ALP wants new kids overboard probe , August 16, 2004, on Australian Broadcast Corporation. Retrieved December 3, 2019