Dark Victory.

• Author: Hoadley, Stephen
• Position: Book Review

DARK VICTORY

Authors: David Marr and Marian Wilkinson Published by: Allen & Unwin, Crow's Nest NSW, 2003, 350pp, $36.95.

Dark Victory stands as the best in its field so far inasmuch as it reconstructs the 2001 Tampa affair in greater detail and with more documentation and perspective than its predecessors. But it is also a one-sided book because its authors omit a sympathetic account of the Australian government's rationale for intercepting and detaining or deflecting boat people.

It tells the now-familiar story of how the Norwegian freighter Tampa rescued over 400 survivors of a sinking people-smuggling boat bound from Indonesia to Australia. Australian SAS troops prevented its entry into the territorial waters of Christmas Island. The Tampa asylum-seekers, and others subsequently intercepted in the Timor Sea, were transferred to Nauru and Marius Island, initiating what became known as 'the Pacific solution'. New Zealand accepted 140 of the refugees, and in January 2004 another 20. A few were admitted to Australia; the bulk were declared not to be bona fide refugees and returned to their countries of origin, mainly in the Middle East, and a few dozen still languish in Nauru, refusing to leave and engaging in hunger strikes to attract international sympathy to their plight.

Prime Minister John Howard in late 2001 turned impending electoral defeat into victory by taking a firm stance and alleging that the boat people had coerced the Tampa's captain, and that other boat people had thrown their children overboard to compel rescue. Neither turned out to be true, but this did not bring down the government nor did it soften its harsh policies. Hence Howard's success at the 2001 polls was based on dubious grounds, a 'dark victory'.

Marr and Wilkinson in...