A Search and Rescue Zone Is a Duty, Not a Courtesy

I am writing from London, in the last days before I relocate to Greece to pursue policy with AURIO. Today my country has been quiet about something it had a duty to be loud about. In the early hours of this morning, between roughly midnight and four o’clock Athens time, vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla were boarded, disabled and seized by Israeli naval forces around thirty five nautical miles off the coast of Crete, more than six hundred nautical miles from Gaza (Al Jazeera, The New York Times, BBC). At the time of writing, at least twenty two of the fifty eight boats had been intercepted and around one hundred and seventy five civilian volunteers had been detained (Associated Press). Israel’s foreign ministry has said the detained will be transferred to Greece “in coordination with the Greek government” (Euronews).

The interception happened inside the Hellenic search and rescue zone. That is the maritime area in which, under the 1979 Hamburg SAR Convention to which Greece is a party, the Greek state is the responsible authority for protecting life at sea. Distress calls from the flotilla to the Hellenic Coast Guard went unanswered, and the Greek Ministry of Shipping and Ministry of Foreign Affairs were silent through the night (The Press Project). The Greek opposition has asked the government to explain its conduct (BBC). A protest is taking place outside the Foreign Ministry in Athens this evening at six o’clock.

A search and rescue zone is not a courtesy. It is a duty. When civilian vessels in distress in our zone call for assistance, the answer is not “in coordination with” the navy that boarded them. The answer is a Hellenic Coast Guard cutter on station.

Three things follow from that, and AURIO calls on the Greek government to do them by Friday.

One. Acknowledge the SAR zone breach. The Greek state must publish, in writing and within forty eight hours, the timestamps of every distress call received from Global Sumud Flotilla vessels in the Hellenic SAR zone, the response decision taken in each case, and the office that took it. Where no response was given, the Greek state must say so and explain why. International maritime convention requires this. So does the public.

Two. Treat the detained as people Greece has a duty to protect. Once these civilians are landed on Greek soil, the Greek state, not the Israeli state and not “in coordination with” the Israeli state, is responsible for their safety, for their access to consular and legal counsel, and for their freedom to continue their journey or to leave Greece on their own terms. Greece is not a transit corridor for forced removals from international waters.

Three. Restate the principle. Greece, of all Mediterranean countries, knows what a sea rescue obligation costs and what it is worth. Our coast guard sailors have done some of the hardest small boat rescue work of the last fifteen years in the Aegean. That work is not a favour. It is the country’s standing. When that standing is rented out to another navy, even by silence, the country loses something it cannot easily reprice.

This is not, principally, a Gaza post. It is a sovereignty post.

In Pillar 04 of our programme we argue that direct democracy begins at home, that the daily decisions of the Greek state should be visible, accountable and reversible by the people who carry their consequences. In Pillar 02 we argue that infrastructure on Greek soil and in Greek waters should serve Greek communities first. In Pillar 11 we argue that a state that does not show up for the vulnerable is not a state, it is an address. The same principle binds the three. A country that cannot protect civilians inside its own search and rescue zone is not exercising sovereignty. It is performing it for someone else.

Greece is older than its government and larger than its coastline. It is held together by people who do small acts of duty in difficult places and by the assumption, mostly correct, that the state will turn up when its turn comes. Last night the state did not turn up. That is recoverable. It becomes unrecoverable only if we treat the silence as ordinary.

The conditions are assembled. What is missing is the political act.

AURIO