Who bombed the Hilton? (27 page)

Our diligent handyman ferries the unopened bag off to lost property.
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When this bag is finally opened a year later, in 1981, it is found to contain, not so much a smoking gun, but a steaming DIY bomb. While we will return to the long list of the bag's contents at a
later date — one packet of strip solder, one clock arm, one yellow towel and so on — what should lodge in your mind for the moment is the 52 individual sticks of gelignite wrapped in a copy of the
Sydney Morning Herald
dated 11 February 1978, a day and a bit before the Hilton bombing.
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The second thing that happens is, if not strange, certainly intriguing. If you are examining the Hilton Bombing Records, as I have been, it looks like the main investigative trajectory of the Hilton task force comes to an abrupt halt. Yes, of course, there are reams of material regarding the trial and appeals of Anderson, Alister and Dunn, and the inquest, and on for the next 18 years, but almost nothing other than that. If you
do not
wish to follow the narrative line that accuses Anderson, Alister and Dunn (or, later, that just accuses Anderson) — or, conversely, exonerates them — and instead want to follow the trail of Abhiik Kumar and the like, as I do — there are literally no more pieces of paper for the rest of the year. While some important archives pertaining to Kumar exist from 1979 on, my folders for primary police sources, August through to December 1978, are completely empty.

Before invoking yet another cockamamie conspiracy theory, consider these things. While it is absolutely clear that the arrest of the three young Margiis at Yagoona, along with their purported confessions about the Hilton via Seary, have thrown Sheather's
investigation into a death spin from which it will not recover, it does provoke questions. Why would Norm Sheather, who had been so willing for so long to keep an open mind about suspects other than members of the Ananda Marga, as well as focusing on the sect's elite, stop so abruptly? It is obvious in those interviews with Seary that Sheather is both incredulous about the Hilton ‘confessions' and dubious that they are substantial enough to result in convictions. Furthermore, none of these three were Norm Sheather's quarry. Would he and all the team who had pored over the intelligence from Interpol and ASIO and Special Branch, inching ever closer to the Margii elite for months, watching them swoop around the world, checking in with Baba in India then swooping out again, just drop the whole thing because three local minions had been arrested? Did they simply decide to abandon the investigative focus on Abhiik Kumar aka Jon Hoffman aka Jason Holman Alexander aka Mark Randall aka Stephen James Manly aka David Hart aka Michael Brandon?

Something else is going on.

Looking at the Hilton records, it seems that immediately after Yagoona on 15 June Norm et al push themselves back from their desks with a sigh à la
Babe
that says ‘That'll do', but this is not what happens at all. It is true that both Norm Sheather and the Hilton task force begin to wind up, however it also marks the launch of an extraordinary last stand of the investigation,
the ramifications of which resonate powerfully in modern Australia. We just have to look elsewhere for our information.

The principal sources I gleaned to piece together what occurred over the next six months are twofold: the super-public, being the daily newspapers, and the super-secret, being the federal Cabinet papers that began to be released under the 30-year rule in 2008. Peppered throughout are other primary archives I located from a range of sources that appeared over the last few decades — declassified ASIO reports and detritus from the ongoing trials. This is the story they relate.

Let's return to the article that appeared in the
Sun-Herald
on 11 June, just before the Yagoona arrests on 15 June. This is the article that seemed intentionally planted, that stated the investigators knew the identity of the bombers — a young woman and a young man, both sect members, the latter currently in India, which is where Abhiik Kumar is. What becomes clear in a matter of weeks is that the article is not the only act of official provocation around this time. On 13 June Kumar's latest passport, in the name of Michael Brandon, is cancelled by the federal government,
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meaning that the police are in a position to detain him for questioning when he gets off that flight from Thailand on the morning of 16 June.

Except he's not on that flight. He does not return
to Australia. Instead, they have Anderson, Alister and Dunn in custody because the day before Kumar is due, Seary has launched a massive police operation based on the sudden and totally unexpected news that three sect members are heading off that very night to blow up a Nazi. Pretty weird timing. You couldn't imagine a better orchestrated bait and switch, could you? Amazing coincidence.

Anyway …

Baba is released and after celebrations in India, the no doubt relieved and euphoric Kumar, using his Brandon passport, finally boards a flight to Sydney, which touches down on 9 August 1978. He is immediately detained. We know about this from the Ananda Marga themselves.

The cancellation of Kumar's Brandon passport on 13 June comes on orders from high up within the federal government. A top secret report on the Ananda Marga is in the process of being compiled, in consultation with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, and the departments of Attorney-General's, Education, Administrative Services and Treasury, as well as ASIO and the Commonwealth Police. When the report is finally presented to Cabinet later in the year, it is startlingly clear that none of these parties believe that the Yagoona Three are anything but foot soldiers like John William Duff, presently before the courts on assault and attempted kidnapping charges, and that they intend to pursue Abhiik Kumar with everything they can collectively throw at him.
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The process of cancelling the Michael Brandon passport — no small legal feat — is set in motion in the wake of the Hilton bombing and the international acts of violence associated with the Margiis (Bangkok, London, Manila). Andrew Peacock, the Minister for
Foreign Affairs, convened a Passports Working Group whose task was to consider all applications for passports by Australian Ananda Marga members. Norm Sheather and the ever-present Detective Sergeant Bruce Jackson are invited to Canberra to participate in the group. By June the members of this collective believe they have sufficient grounds to provide a legal basis for the minister to cancel Brandon's passport. The Passports Working Group ‘took into consideration criminal evidence supplied by COMPOL which indicated while in Bangkok, he was engaged in conspiratorial conduct in relation to arranging the illegal purchase of explosives and that he also sought to obtain false Canadian or British passports'.
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In brief, the Working Group feel they have compelling evidence linking Abhiik Kumar to the explosives found on the Bangkok Three just after the Hilton, and this is enough to revoke his passport.

There is a certain degree of practical genius as well as symbolic power in stopping the globetrotting spiritual leader in his tracks and forcing him to stay put in Sydney under the watchful eye of the authorities. Much is made of the fact that while Brandon is a naturalised Australian citizen, this is very recent (he only became a citizen in early 1977, probably because of the impending travel ban on foreign Margiis) and he is US born and raised. It is clear that part of the intention behind the cancellation of the passport is to
sway the hearts and minds of the public. As part of this orchestrated attack on the sect's elite, the Department of Foreign Affairs issues a statement to the press the day after Kumar's detention which makes clear that this man is an undesirable Australian — indeed they question whether he deserves the right to be a citizen:

This all makes sense and it's a good PR move to characterise him as an unsavoury type yet offer up no details about what he's actually done, instead leaving it to the public to imagine his evil deeds. In the same vein, and on virtually the same day, the Thai Government suddenly announces that they are to release the three Ananda Marga members imprisoned in Bangkok — the Australians Jones and Spark and the American Sarah Child. This decision is clearly made in consultation with the Australian Government. The news appears in an article attached to the one about Kumar's loss of his passport and rights as an Australian citizen:
Thailand to Free Ananda Marga Trio. No Passport for Sect Leader.
The Thais have no problem being utterly clear about their motives for freeing the trio:
‘Thailand decided today to release [the three members of the Ananda Marga sect] because the government feared terrorist reprisals if a court sentenced them to long jail terms.'
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In order to ameliorate the process and presumably save face, the Thai authorities offer Jones, Spark and Child a Faustian pact of sorts — they can go free but only if they change their pleas of not guilty to ‘Having possessed 1.25 kg of plastic explosives, to guilty, in exchange for light sentences.'
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So light, in fact, that they will be out the following Tuesday, having served six months. After that they are to be deported back to their countries of origin — Jones and Spark to Australia, where they haven't set foot for almost five years, and Child to an ‘unspecified destination'. Selling a small part of their souls in order to take the deal doesn't faze them a bit. On the contrary, they argue that if they didn't switch their pleas as requested, their lawyers said they could be liable for sentences of up to 20 years. They also claim that, ‘We pleaded guilty after the offer was made to us, as we saw we had no chance of a fair trial in Thailand,'
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which seems a bit rich given the Thais have just given them a golden ticket and released them.

Overall, Spark and Jones are remarkably untouched — possibly even emboldened — by the entire experience. In addition to maintaining their innocence, despite their guilty pleas, they declare to
journalists, ‘Outside prison we can act. We know people in Australia are hostile to Ananda Marga but that's only because they don't know the truth. We aim to change that.'
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For Timothy Jones, the whole thing has given him an opportunity to renew his vows, announcing that ‘he would dedicate the rest of his life to Ananda Marga'. For Caroline Spark, 25, of Canberra, it was all a bit like a holiday or spiritual spa: ‘I leave prison with some reluctance. Where else could I spend nine hours a day in meditation as I have been doing?'
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One element of this abrupt offer of liberty that jars is the statement from the Australian embassy officials, who ‘assured the two Australians that there were no plans for charges to be brought against them in Australia relating to the events in Thailand'.
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Why are they being so nice? Is it another attempt to try and get them to turn against Abhiik Kumar or each other? The threats haven't worked so maybe their thinking is ‘let's give them something to be grateful for and see if that works'.

I thought this might be the case at first but then realised this was not the
raison d'etre.
Given the soaring bleats of devotion issuing from the mouths of Spark and Jones post release, and their distinct lack of gratitude to either the Thai or Australian authorities, it's impossible to imagine the cops, who'd made various attempts to get them to cooperate throughout their
incarceration, thinking these two would ever be good for turning. The secret Cabinet paper makes clear that what they want, as in the case of Kumar, is to keep them close and to keep them in one place. As soon as the ardent pair are deported to Australia, their passports are also cancelled.

What the Australian authorities want is to curtail the freewheeling gallivanting that these particular Margiis have engaged in for years. They want Kumar, Jones and Spark, who they suspect of dark and criminal deeds, to stand still so that they can watch them. They want to assert their control and make it clear to these cult members who has the power. The days of flitting in and out of countries and slipping on new names and identities are over. You will stay where we put you.

If some of this seems a tad familiar in contemporary Australia — the cancellation of passports, the aggressive assertion of federal government authority over individuals who are regarded as suspicious but not actually charged with anything — that's because it's possible that what we are witnessing is not so much the birth of Fortress Australia as its conception. Scholars and sceptics alike have claimed that the Hilton bombing brought in widespread and sweeping changes to the security agencies in Australia. By the end of 1978, the Marks inquiry (instigated by Fraser immediately after the bombing) will lead to the formation of the
Australian Federal Police; the following year increased powers of surveillance are given to ASIO, and paramilitary SWAT-style units are created in state police services, as is the domestic Special Air Service (SAS) in the Australian Defence Force. Crisis Policy centres are established with the authority to take control of parts of the country in times of emergency.
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