Eureka Street is delighted to extend our congratulations to Tony Kevin, author of A Certain Maritime Incident: The Sinking of the SIEV X.
Tony was awarded the Community Relations Award in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards at the recent Sydney Writers’ Festival.
The award is long-overdue public recognition for the great service Tony has done the Australian community, through his persistent investigation and reporting of the sinking of the Indonesian fishing vessel off the Australian coast on 19 October 2001. Some 353 people seeking asylum in Australia were drowned as a result. Tony has fought, and continues to fight, for a full public disclosure as to the role of the Australian government in this human disaster; a role largely ignored by the Australian public and long denied by our bureaucracy.
In accepting the award from NSW Premier Bob Carr, Tony was quick to place the associated publicity and recognition in the context of those who lost their lives, and the continuing search for the truth behind what really happened.
‘It is about keeping the issue of SIEV X alive, which some powerful forces in Australian government would dearly love to see buried and forgotten.
‘Most of all, this award is an honour to the dignity and courage of the people who died and of the people who mourn them. It is also a recognition of the investigative work that I and others have done, to try to bring what I believe was a great crime against humanity to justice. That crusade is not over yet, it is in process, but this award is a very important stepping stone on the road.
‘One day a whistleblower will come forward from within the national security system, and we will then know how much of my book is true and how much of it is false.’
Tony Kevin has written of the sinking of the SIEV X, and the continuing investigation, for Eureka Street in October 2002, October 2003 and July–August 2004.