»The truth may be bitter, but it must be told« During their nightly operations the coast guard of Lesbos act in a manner which would only appear legally justified in times of war: The patrol boats extinguish their lights on leaving the harbour. We observed this practice regularly during our few weeks stay in Greece; this practice represents a clear violation on international maritime law. Unofficially coast guard staff confirmed that they had received orders to do this. The coast guard also have a policy of deliberately frightening the people in the boats. »We drive very close to the boats and put the headlights on, to see who is there. Of course they are not going to turn around voluntarily because they want to come here.« says N. If the people can’t be convinced to turn around and head back, there is a special manoeuvre, through which the relatively large boat of the coast guard deliberately creates waves which batter the small overcrowded boats: »Simply drive around them, create waves and give the people a fright – as though telling them ›we decide what goes on here – go away!‹ « The lawyer Natassa Strachini from Chios agrees that this method is regularly used15: »Here on Chios the boats of the irregular migrants are bigger than on Lesbos. They have motors – only the Afghans use the plastic ›children’s‹ boats, everyone else uses wooden boats with motors. When they don’t stop on command of the coast guard, the coast guard throws ropes at the motor so that they get tangled in the propeller, stopping the motor and the boat itself. Then the following happens: the coast guards circle the boats, creating waves which drive the boats back into international or Turkish waters. They do this very often – and it works! The boat has no motor anymore. By making the waves, they set the boat in motion.« What happens next, is described by officer N.: »Normally the irregular migrants take out knives and cut the boat to pieces. If they don’t do that my colleagues pull the boats back using the ropes. People try to prevent this, jumping into the water, so that they then have to be rescued. If, during the night, we find them near the coast, and they don’t cut up their boats, we sometimes drag them back. But sometimes they arrive during the day as well. If they don’t damage their boats to such an extent that they’re unusable – a mistake on their part – then we put them back on the boats and bring them back to the Turkish coast or to an uninhabited islands. This is not official policy – of course not – the Turkish authorities must not know. So either we drag people out of our waters in their boat, or we bring them and their boats on board of the patrol ship and drive them into Turkish waters, where we launch their boat and put the people back on.« Even the head of the coast guard Mikromastoras confirms that, secretly, refugees are brought back to the Turkish coast, even after they have been on Greek Boat of the Lesbos coast guard showing mount for a machinegun on its prow. 14 The practices of the Greek coast guard: systematic human rights violations