High Above A Tide Of Human Misery
Sun Herald
Sunday December 5, 1999
TOO often lately, when the Coastwatch crew arrives back at its base in Broome it has a story of human tragedy to report.
Over the past six months, 34 boats carrying more than 1,600 people have made it to Australia's rugged north-western coast, but the number who didn't make it lost at sea or dumped on tidal sandbars to perish may never be known.
The difficult task of tracking the refugees most of whom come via Indonesia before they make land and disappear, rests on the shoulders of a team of men who patrol the vast area where the Timor Sea meets the Indian Ocean.
In Coastwatch's Dash 8 surveillance aircraft, Captain Brent Armstrong and first officer Steve Moore search for Suspected Illegal Entry Vessels (SIEVs), chasing ``radar contacts", then swooping as low as 66m to record numbers and even nationality.
They are the thorn in the side of avaricious people-smugglers. While the Coastwatch can't stop the boats coming, it can at least make sure they are caught.
Today, sitting behind the pilots is mission co-ordinator Mike Pivac and electronics observer Matt Reeve. They supply the intelligence for the search using a radar system that can ``in the right weather conditions, find a coconut at 20 miles", and the FLIR infra-red heat- sensor which doubles as a high definition zoom-in television.
Last Tuesday, the Dash 8 had a special mission, a 3,000km loop that would go within 26 nautical miles (about 50km) of Indonesia, way past the line marking the border of the 200 nautical-mile Australian Economic Exclusion zone.
Coastwatch is part of the Australian Customs Service, but the flying is contracted out to Surveillance Australia, a wholly owned division of National Jet Systems, of Adelaide.
George Riley, 42, is the WA Coastwatch boss. His workload has burgeoned since July. To the south of Broome, Port Hedland Detention Centre is full. Another one was opened north of George at Curtin Air Base outside Derby. It's full too. And still they keep coming.
It is Coastwatch's role to warn Immigration about impending arrivals. Most now will go to the new holding place at Woomera.
But more importantly, Mr Riley wants to catch the people-smugglers in the act, to prevent them from dropping off their cargo at remote places such as Ashmore or Scott reefs and then heading home, probably for another human cargo.
Sometimes, Coastwatch's role is search and rescue.
On October 7, one Coastwatch plane spotted 62 people stranded on Scott Reef, a 15m-wide sandy cay that is submerged in certain tidal conditions.
Customs officers rescued the frightened men, women and children at 2am. One officer, Mark Trewin, had to wade ashore with a torch through shallow water seething with poisonous sea snakes.
Three months ago, Mr Pivac went out to Christmas Island and spent three days searching for the bodies of 16 out of a boatload of 20 Sri Lankans abandoned by their crew. Their boat had broken down and eventually sank. Only four were rescued.
These and other heart-wrenching experiences have left their mark on the Coastwatch officers. There is much sympathy for the refugees who are being exploited by callous criminals. As Mr Riley puts it: ``There's no after-sales service with this ticket."
The north-west corner of Australia has seen 13 illegal cargoes, starting with the 352 Middle Eastern asylum- seekers who arrived at Ashmore Reef aboard a ferry on November 1.
The most recent arrival was on November 26 when a boat carrying 29 passengers was spotted from the air at Adele Island, close to the mainland, and apparently trying to put people ashore covertly.
Using four planes, Customs boats and Fremantle-class Navy patrol boats, surveillance operations officer Steve Teraci has developed a chess-like strategy for monitoring more than 200,000sq/km of ocean between Australia and Indonesia.
He explains his plan on a wall map with arrows, representing the illegal vessels, coming south from Indonesia in a giant V-shape, from West Timor to Roti in the middle, Flores and Lombok to the east.
To ensure they are picked up, Mr Teraci has designed a series of dog-leg ``fairways" from Broome north and then east, representing the basic routes his planes will fly. It works; only one boat has got to the mainland in recent months.
Jim Cahill manages the Surveillance Australia 32-person team in Broome. It is a struggle to make sure they can always respond in emergencies. Engineers sometimes work through the night to keep planes operating.
At 7.30am last Tuesday, the Coastwatch crew was briefed by Mr Pivac. Their transport is a Bombardier de Havilland Dash 8 Series 200, one of three used by Coastwatch.
The flight must classify and log every contact 50 nautical miles (90km) either side of its path, and immediately, the radar screen which can track 30 contacts in a circle 250 nautical miles (460km) wide comes into play.
Turning north-east, it picks up a signal from an FFV (foreign fishing vessel), and a descent to 150m reveals she is the Thunnus No2, a long-liner registered in Jakarta, sitting dead in the water, well inside the exclusion zone. But there is no indication she is doing anything illegal. The situation is reported to Fisheries in Canberra.
By noon, it is time to visit Ashmore Reef, where Customs vessel Botany Bay is stationed in the lagoon, along with several Indonesian boats that have been confiscated.
On West Island there are two palm trees, and under one of them is a blue tarpaulin, kindly left by the last occupants for the next lot. But things were quiet.
Mr Pivac is amazed - he's something of a magnet for SIEVs, clocking up to 30 in the past nine months. Now, a journey of 71/2 hours and ...? Nothing.
But no-one thinks the arrivals have finished, even if the wet season has begun.
© 1999 Sun Herald