The author, Mary Dagmar Davies is the founder of JANNAH THE SIEV X MEMORIAL.  She is also a regular contributing writer for Axis of Logic.

October 1, 2000 the word 'Eternity' was up in lights on the Sydney Harbour Bridge as a multicultural Australia welcomed people from all over the world to the Olympics. The dazzling Opening Ceremony charted the whole of Australia's history starting from the Dreamtime and the Olympic flame was lit by Kathy Freeman, a proud and beautiful aboriginal athlete, who seemed to represent the spirit of the land. For one brief moment it seemed all people in the land of the Southern Cross all the people across this extraordinary vast country were united and compassionate and understanding future seemed assured.

One year later everything had changed. Australia, instead of stepping boldly and independently into the future, was lead backward to revive the most repressive and cruel aspects of a colonial past. The voice of human rights, reconciliation and understanding was dismissed by the strident bullying voice of authoritarianism. Some of our finest writers went unpublished. Criticism of the Prime Minister was scorned, compassion was all but silenced in the mainstream media and the opinion of talk back radio replaced reasoned journalistic analysis. Careful journalists tried to show their displeasure with Howard by describing as a �very clever politician� but unfortunately the general public read this as an endorsement.

How did we became this place of division and hostility? How could we stand by as children have been robbed of their innocence and their identity, been mentally and physically abused locked up indefinitely behind the electrified fences and razor wire of detention centres. How could we stand by as young people died in detention or the trauma and fear of deportation?

How we were prepared to accept lies without question And how could we allow our government to deny refuge and freedom to desperate people with tiny children and allowed cruel laws to be passed that would split families apart? How many were deported to death? And then there is SIEV X how could we ignore the death of 146 innocent children? 353 people just like us, 146 children 142 women and 65 men, died under the Southern Cross.

We in Australia might not understand how or why we changed from the multi-cultural and welcoming Australia we presented to the world at Olympics 2000. As we were diverted by the spectacle the Howard Government formulated the neo-White Australia Policy and prepared to make Australia a penal colony once more. We were so naive, so trusting. We were so thrilled to meet our guests from around the world and learn about our country from the descendents of its original owners, that we simply failed to notice what our government was doing.

On May 28, 2000 millions of Australians originating from all over the world grasped the hands of perfect strangers as they crossed bridges in the midday sun throughout the country in reconciliation hand in hand with indigenous Australians. . Their touched with us their compassion, courage and forgiveness as we embraced reconciliation. Just as later we were to be touched by the compassion, courage and forgiveness of the refugees.

'SORRY' the word Australian Prime Minister John Howard denied to the few remaining descendents of the original owners of this county and victims of the stolen generation, was written in a vapour trail across the clear blue sky above the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

John Howard did not cross that bridge, or any other bridge, and for hours no car or motor vehicle crossed the famous bridge. It was filled with happy smiling and people of all ages, shapes and colours walking side by side to the music of different languages and accents. A gentle breeze blew away the toxic fumes of the city and the air was fresh and tasted sweet. This was happiness. This was kinship.

Yes, at the dawn of this millennium Australians appeared to be on the brink of understanding that this was not a young country but a very old country. We understood that until the first fleet arrived from Britain just over 200 years ago, that the land we now call Australia was home to a vibrant people and a history of tolerance spanning 60,000 years.

Embracing reconciliation non-indigenous Australians soon identified the first great political lie to be 'Terra Nullius'. Like the history of ancient Eqypt, the history of Australia before Captain Cook was written in pictures. The claim the aboriginal people had no written history was to deny their sacred sites and art which dated back millennia.

We should have realised something was wrong when the numbers on the bridge were scaled back to a point of absurdity. But we didn�t realise, it was all too exciting. There was to much to do and too much to learn. John Howard shrugged off criticism claiming it to be the �black armband view of history� and continued to vilify indigenous Australians. What time did we have for old-fashioned and dull politician who was expected to be gone at the 2001 election. So few of us knew that John Howard�s government was routinely imprisoning the children and families seeking asylum in Australia.

We had at last faced the appalling truth of the genocide of indigenous Australians which started with mass killing and the appropriation of land. That Aboriginal families had been routinely separated, babies and young children torn from they mothers arms to be brought up as servants. We knew shooting parties had regarded the killing of Aborigines as a recreational sport and that, for a century after it ended in the United States, slavery continued to thrive. But few of us knew about the refugees. A lid was kept on that dirty secret.

The Howard Government should have been voted out at the 2001 Election but then 9/11 happened. When the twin towers of the World Trade Centre fell and the Pentagon was hit and the tragedy shook the world, John Howard just happened to be in the United States. With breathtaking speed and little consultation, monarchist John Howard declared Australia�s total allegiance to President George W. Bush. George W Bush�s wars would be Australia�s wars.

The mini neo-con John Howard had found his political soul mate and nothing would be allowed to get in the way of his winning the 2001 Australian election. Nothing. Certainly not human rights, democracy or justice.

So with the disgusting phrase �We will decide who comes to Australia and the manner in which they come� the emboldened John Howard campaigned for the election. It was a horrible election campaign based on deception and opportunism. Racism and fear became political strategy. The American Alliance is important to both sides of the political spectrum and the Australian Labor Party�s by partisan stance on the War on Terror, border protection and detention meant that debate was silenced.

Then in the middle of the election campaign on the 19th of October 2001, a tiny nameless fishing boat carrying over 400 asylum seekers, sank en route to Australia. And the major protagonists in the election abandoned compassion and integrity and turned away from the monstrous tragedy of SIEV X. Alarmed by our inability to distinguish between the major parties all the things that disturbed us, or were just to frightening to think about, were pushed into our subconscious.

Fearing death in their countries of birth the people of SIEV X believed they would find freedom and peace in Australia. The asylum seekers had believed in Australia. They were so close and then Australia closed her borders. That tiny boat since named SIEV X (Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel - X for unknown) had been their only chance to reach their loved ones and family waiting for them in Australia. 353 people who should have lived to become Australians died in what is now known as the tragedy of SIEV X.

After the 2001election when Howard settled into a third as Prime Minister. The Government and the Opposition ironically occupying 146 seats between them, the exact number of children who died in the SIEV X tragedy. The Senate Inquiry into "A Certain Maritime Incident" was set up to investigate the callous fabrication by the Howard Government prior to the election that asylum seekers being turned back to Indonesia had threatened to throw their children overboard. The CMI Inquiry was expanded to include SIEV X.

On September 2002 under the heading "LICENCE TO KILL?" this commentary was published by Marg Hutton�s website sievx.com:

The Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, John Faulkner, was prepared to lay his personal credibility on the line last night when he asked if there is a link between the People Smuggling Disruption Program in Indonesia and the sinking of SIEVX in October last year. In the climax to this strongly-worded, powerful three-part speech, [1, 2] Faulkner raised the spine-chilling possibility that the disruption program in Indonesia may have been used as a licence to kill:

SENATOR JOHN FAULKNER extract from speech

~ "The issue of sabotage of people smugglers' vessels has been canvassed by the AFP informant Kevin Enniss.

"I ask these questions: was Enniss involved in the sabotage of vessels? Were others involved in the sabotage of vessels? Do Australian ministers, officials or agencies have knowledge of such activities? And what about the vessel now known as SIEVX, part of the people-smuggling operation of the notorious people smuggler Abu Quassey? That vessel set sail on 18 October 2001 and sank on 19 October 2001, drowning 353 people, including 142 women and 146 children. Were disruption activities directed against Abu Quassey? Did these involve SIEVX?

"I intend to keep asking questions until I find out. And, Mr Acting Deputy President, I intend to keep pressing for an independent judicial inquiry into these very serious matters. At no stage do I want to break, nor will I break, the protocols in relation to operational matters involving ASIS or the AFP. But, those protocols were not meant as a direct or an indirect licence to kill."

~ License to Kill

It would appear that people smugglers are just the tip of a very dirty iceberg but it was like water off a ducks back to John Howard. It is as though he is unaware and that his government is unaware they have flagrantly disregarded every international convention on human rights, refugees and children to which Australia is a signatory.  SIEV X sunk in Australia's border protection surveillance zone and it is this country's responsibility to find out why and who was responsible for the criminal and forced overloading of the boat and the cause of it's sinking.  

Maybe John Howard will only comprehend that people of SIEV X are victims of a crime if it is carefully explained to the perpetrators by the International Criminal Court to which Australia unlike the United States is also signatory.  But while John Howard remains Prime Minister none of Australia's human rights violations or the case of SIEV X will reach that court because the Australian Attorney General is person who decides if charges can be laid and our current Attorney General Philip Ruddock was formally the Minister for Immigration and Indigenous Affairs. 

Of course the alleged people smuggler Khaleed Daoed is facing trial in currently on charges related to SIEV X  and Abu Quassey who arranged the doomed voyage was put on trial in Eqypt.  Quassey was sentenced to seven years.   The Howard Government said this sent a clear message to people smugglers and said the survivors of SIEV X should take comfort from the sentence and the fine imposed.

Students and practitioners of International Law and Human Rights Law who are interested in the events of SIEV X should browse Marg Hutton's comprehensive research resource sievx.com http://sievx.com/.    It is also recommended that they read 'BORDERLINE' by Peter Mares 'DARK VICTORY' by David Marr and Marian Wilkinson, 'TAMPERING WITH ASYLUM' by Frank Brennan and 'A CERTAIN MARITIME INCIDENT - the sinking of SIEV X'  by Tony Kevin.  Former diplomat Tony Kevin finally brought the worst maritime disaster in the history of Australian into the public conciousness. Tony Kevin put SIEV X before the CMI Inquiry. He named SIEV X. SIEV X turned him into a 'whistleblower'. His book "A CERTAIN MARITIME INCIDENT the sinking of SIEV X" was launched last week.

In 2003, on the eve of the second SIEV X anniversary in a welcome and historic development, the Senate of Australia specifically expressed its regret and sympathy for the loss of so many innocent lives 146 children, 142 women and 65 men -a total of 353. While many politicians in both houses of parliament are working hard to ensure justice, it was the first motion of condolence for asylum seekers in recent history.

The motion was put by Senator Andrew Bartlett leader of the Democrats and supported by the ALP and the Greens. Unlike some politicians he sees the desperate families on SIEV X in human terms. In a moving speech to the historic motion Bartlett made this absolutely clear:

~ "It will be a day and a date I will always remember, because 19 October 2001, the day that all those children drowned, was the same day that my first and only daughter, Lillith, was born. She is, in my view, the most beautiful girl ever born - I apologise to everybody else who might have children, but that is just the way it is and to think that, at the same time that she was being born and all the wonder that goes with that, there were146 children whose lives were about to end as they struggled in the water insuch fear and terror. It is indeed a tragedy, and it is one that should be remembered." ~

Senator Bartlett knows, and we know, parents of every child who died in the SIEV X tragedy felt exactly the same way about each of child of theirs.

An increasing number of politicians correctly see SIEV X not simply a political issue but something which impacts on everyone in the electorate in a very personal way. Whether we speak about it or are shocked to silence.

To understand or visualise the horror SIEV X, even if we have never experienced parenthood or tragedy, it is necessary for us to place SIEV X in context with things we know.

At the opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics just over 400 athletes will march behind the Australian flag. Over 400 people were forced at gun point onto SIEV X. We travel and would know the population of many small towns, and villages in many parts of the world is less than 400. The population of Lord Howe Island an idyllic holiday island of the Australian coast was recorded as 300 in 2002.

When we watch the tennis at this Olympiad let us take note of the size of the court. At 19.5 meters long SIEV X was four meters shorter than a tennis court and less than half it's width (tennis court 23.774 m x 10.973 m). A tennis court looks full when doubles are in progress. So many people, so many families. Over 400 human beings were put to sea on a tiny, leaky wooden boat that could have been dry docked on a tennis court on one side of the centre line with room to spare.

Last year a shipload of live sheep from Australia were rejected by Saudi Arabia and there was a public outcry in the press and on the airwaves. There has been no such outcry about SIEV X. But people are fearful of speaking out on behalf of refugees just like people in Germany feared to speak up for the Jews such is the political climate in Australian under John Howard. Australians aren't cruel or heartless but the moral compass of the country is clearly out of whack when we are more concerned about sheep than people.

The sheep were bought and paid for, transported in modern seaworthy ships and bred for slaughter. The people on SIEV X were people and slaughtering people is a crime. Yes, they were people on SIEV X people just like us. When people are travelling it is a crime to accept payment and not ensure save transportation and arrival. If someone dies a violent death before their time there has to be an investigation. Australia has a responsibility to the people of SIEV X.

The human cargo of SIEV X was packed tighter than live sheep trade regulations would allow. There was nothing wrong with us being upset when we saw the faces the sheep Saudi Arabia rejected and no one is pretending they could be anything but sheep. The difference was the Australian government was rejecting people, not sheep.

It's not surprising that the Australian people still cannot distinquish between sheep and children when the Howard Government has been most careful to ensure very few photographs of refugees ever reach the mainstream media. But for one photograph of three beautiful little girls who died in the tragedy of SIEV X the people of Australia didn't see their faces. It is easy to dehumanise and demonise people when we cannot see the humanity and innocence in their faces when their names are denied and they answer only to a number. They were simply refugees they jumped no queues because there were no queues to join. They were not illegal because it is not illegal to seek refuge and they could only have fitted such a description if they had arrived.

It's likely the emotion we had bottled up, about the SIEV X and those three little girls who looked just like the children we love, was triggered and released when we saw the sheep. It was like being waking from a hypnotic trance when someone snaps their fingers. But the media failed to join the dots and realise what had happened. So the momentary flash of comprehension was unreported and consequently forgotten, slipping from our grasp, fading like a dream.

The finest of our journalists have to tread a knife edge to get any story through on human rights. So when Senator Andrew Bartlett stood in the parliament and spoke up for the 146 children, 142 women and 65 who died in the SIEV X tragedy the media ignored this historic moment.

The media also ignored this poem by a man who had lost years of his young life in fear and depression behind the razor wire of one of Australia's brutal detention centres:

I journeyed out to sea in my mind last night
and I wondered...
I wondered if humans are worth as much as animalsI wondered if people could feel the emotion of the cage
I wondered, if we had come here as unwanted livestock, if there had been
just one sheep on the SIEV X, would people see the truth about asylum
seekers?
I wondered if they could imagine children as lambs, would they then shed tears?
If only the press had cared as much for them as those sheep...
I wish we had been born sheep instead of scapegoats
I wish it was not better to be a dumb animal than to be human here.

~Mohsen Soltani

SIEV X sunk in Australia's border protection surveillance zone and it is this country's responsibility to find out why and who was responsible for the criminal and forced overloading of the boat and the cause of it's sinking. There must be a full judicial inquiry.

When we think of the children starving in Sudan and elsewhere. When we remember the tragic sinking of SIEV X, and The Stolen Generation, when we think of war and unbidden tears well up for children we will never know. We must think of what we can do to persuade our government and other governments to stop their continued cruelty to innocent children and callous disregard for their lives. Every child matters, every child is important.

Our children will grow up with the results of laws and decisions made in this time. They will look back at the things we did. They will judge how all this happened and they will write the history books. What will they think? What will they say?

So the new Olympiad is starting and we turn to Athens - let the games begin. It is currently tipped that John Howard will call the election this weekend to take full advantage of the diversion of the Olympics.   We had better be watching John Howard�s performance.  He is not spectacular or a joy to watch but he is very, very dangerous and every medal won by an Australian athlete will be an instant photo opportunity for this opportunistic Prime Minister. 

YOUR MESSAGE OF REMEMBERENCE FOR SIEV X IS IMPORTANT