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What is Australia doing to bring this man to justice?
Abu Quassey - the organiser of the fatal SIEVX voyage on which 353 people lost their lives - due to be released from prison in Indonesia on 1 January after serving a 6 month sentence for minor immigration offences. |
We say to the AFP and the Australian Government - this is the real test
of your sincerity in regard to SIEVX. Bring Quassey to justice in
Australia for his part in the mass killings of those on board the SIEVX. If
you have nothing to fear from Quassey's evidence in an Australian court
and what he might reveal about the Australian People Smuggling
Disruption Program in Indonesia then you will find a way to bring him
here.
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Kevin Claims SIEVX 'Pre-emptive Strike'
8 December 2002
The article below, by Tony Kevin, first appeared in the ABC's 'Public Record' on 6 December.
X-URL: http://www.abc.net.au/public/s742002.htm
Australia has already launched pre-emptive strikes on the
territory of countries in our region, without the knowledge or
permission of those countries' governments, against activities
our government deemed were hostile to Australia's national
security interests.
I refer here to the Australian Government's clandestine and
ultimately highly lethal people smuggling disruption program
in Indonesia, that was formally launched in September 2000, by
directive of the Minister for Customs.
This secret program operated initially under the nominal cover
of an Australian-Indonesian Protocol for police cooperation
against people smuggling, although this activity is not a
crime under Indonesian law.
The Indonesian Government revoked that Protocol on September
12 2001, but the Australian Federal Police maintained its
clandestine cooperation with the selected Indonesian police
units it had trained and bribed during the first year of the
program, until the program was formally re-launched after the
Bali People Smuggling Conference in February 2002.
Under the program, three AFP liaison officers operated out of
the Australian Embassy in Jakarta with the ambassador's
knowledge and protection. Other Australian agencies eg DIMIA,
ASIS, may have also been involved.
The program subverted selected Indonesian police to mount
disruption operations against people smuggling voyages. These
operations went far beyond "innocent" intelligence gathering
and public information to discourage passengers. It included
the active setting up of "sting" companies - purported
shipping companies which mounted phoney voyages, defrauded
asylum-seekers of their savings under the false pretences that
guaranteed safe voyages to Australia were being sold, and then
disabled and even sank boats. The objective was to discredit
the people smuggling industry and deter its customers.
There was some loss of life, even before SIEVX.
The deliberate sinking of SIEVX on October 19 2001 with 353
lives lost was the major and decisive disruption operation. It
broke the people smuggling industry by showing that there was
a preparedness to take utterly ruthless pre-emptive action -
mass murder - to deter further such voyages.
There is mounting circumstantial evidence that Abu Quassey,
the self-confessed organiser of this grossly overloaded
voyage, worked in collusion with Indonesian police units to
organise it at a time of peak pressure on Australia's border
protection objectives.
These may have been the very Indonesian Police units the AFP
disruption program liaison officers had motivated and trained
since 2000, though there is as yet no conclusive proof of
this.
Quassey is due to be released on January 1 2003 after serving
a short sentence on passport-related offences. So far there is
no sign that the Australian Government is seriously trying to
persuade the Indonesian Government to hold him in custody
until he can be extradited to Australia on homicide-related
charges. This can only fuel the well-founded suspicion that
Quassey and his Indonesian police partners had some form of
direct or indirect working association with the AFP people
smuggling disruption program in Indonesia.
The indiscriminate politically motivated killing of 353 people
mostly women and children counts as ruthless pre-emptive
action in anybody's language.
Evidence is mounting that Australian Government agencies had
some direct or indirect association with this great crime. The
test now of the Australian Government's bona fides in this
very grave matter will be how seriously it pursues bringing
Abu Quassey to justice for the premeditated deaths of 353
people. Abu Quassey may be the key to this story.
Other SIEVX Related News
- ALP gets asylum policy nearly right ~ Michael Gordon, 7 December 2002 (Age)
[W]hy has not a single boat landed on the Australian mainland since August last year... Is it because 354 people perished in the SIEV-X tragedy last October, or because four boats were successfully returned to Indonesia after being intercepted, or because of covert efforts to disrupt the people smugglers?
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