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