| Sinking ofRainbow Warrior | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Rainbow Warrior pictured inScheveningen in 1979 | ||||
| Date | 10 July 1985 (40 years ago) (1985-07-10) 11:38 p.m. – 11:45 p.m. (NZST;UTC+12:00) | |||
| Location | 36°50′32″S174°46′18″E / 36.84222°S 174.77167°E /-36.84222; 174.77167 | |||
| Caused by | Retaliation for protests by Greenpeace against French nuclear testing | |||
| Goals | To sinkRainbow Warrior | |||
| Methods | Bombing | |||
| Resulted in | Rainbow Warrior sunk, Fernando Pereira killed | |||
| Parties | ||||
| Lead figures | ||||
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| Units involved | ||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||
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Thesinking ofRainbow Warrior, codenamedOpération Satanique,[1] was a "covert operation" by the"action" branch of the French foreignintelligence agency, theDirectorate-General for External Security (DGSE), the covert attack was carried out on 10 July 1985. During the operation, two operatives (both French citizens) sank theflagship of theGreenpeace fleet,Rainbow Warrior, at thePort of Auckland on her way to a protest against a planned Frenchnuclear test inMoruroa.Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship.
The sinking was a cause of embarrassment to France and PresidentFrançois Mitterrand. They initially denied responsibility, but two French agents were captured byNew Zealand Police and charged witharson,conspiracy to commit arson,willful damage andmurder. It resulted in a scandal that led to the resignation of theFrench Defence MinisterCharles Hernu, while the two agents pleaded guilty tomanslaughter and were sentenced to ten years in New Zealand prison. Despite being sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, due to pressures from the French state they spent merely two years confined to the French Polynesian island ofHao before being freed by the French government.[2]
France was also forced to apologise and had to pay reparations to New Zealand, Pereira's family and Greenpeace.
France begantesting nuclear weapons in 1966 onMururoa Atoll in theTuamotu Archipelago ofFrench Polynesia. In 1985, the South Pacific nations ofAustralia, theCook Islands,Fiji,Kiribati,Nauru,New Zealand,Niue,Papua New Guinea,Samoa,Solomon Islands,Tonga,Tuvalu andVanuatu signed theTreaty of Rarotonga declaring the region a nuclear-free zone.[3]
Since being acquired by Greenpeace in 1977,Rainbow Warrior was active in supporting several anti-whaling, anti-seal hunting, anti-nuclear testing and anti-nuclear waste dumping campaigns during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Since early 1985, the ship was based in the southern Pacific Ocean, where its crew campaigned against nuclear testing. After relocating 300Marshall Islanders fromRongelap Atoll, which had been polluted by radioactive fallout by past American nuclear tests, it travelled to New Zealand to lead a flotilla of yachts protesting French nuclear testing at the Mururoa Atoll.[4]
During previous nuclear tests at Mururoa, protest ships had been boarded by French commandos after sailing into the shipping exclusion zone around the atoll. For the 1985 tests, Greenpeace intended to monitor the impact of nuclear tests and place protesters on the island to monitor the blasts.
French agents, posing as interested supporters or tourists, toured the ship while it was open to public viewing.DGSE agent Christine Cabon, who had previously worked on intelligence missions in the Middle East, posed as environmentalist "Frederique Bonlieu" to infiltrate the Greenpeace office inAuckland.[5][6] While working for the Auckland office, Cabon secretly monitored communications fromRainbow Warrior, collected maps and investigated underwater equipment.
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Three agents on board the yachtOuvéa imported thelimpet mines used for the bombing. Two more agents,Dominique Prieur andAlain Mafart, posing as the newlywed couple "Sophie and Alain Turenge", picked up the mines and delivered them to the bombing team, consisting of the divers Jean Camas ("Jacques Camurier") and Jean-Luc Kister ("Alain Tonel").
After sufficient information had been gathered, Camas and Kister attached two limpet mines toRainbow Warrior berthed at Marsden Wharf. They were detonated seven minutes apart.[7] The first bomb went off at 23:38, blasting a hole about the size of an average car.
While the ship was initially evacuated, some of the crew returned to the ship to investigate and film the damage. Portuguese-Dutch photographer,Fernando Pereira, returned below deck to fetch his camera equipment. At 23:45, the second bomb went off. Pereira drowned in the rapid flooding that followed, and the other ten crew members either safely abandoned ship on the order of CaptainPeter Willcox or were thrown into the water by the second explosion.Rainbow Warrior partially sank four minutes later.
After the bombing, theNew Zealand Police started one of the country's largest police investigations. They identified two of the French agents, CaptainDominique Prieur and CommanderAlain Mafart, as possible suspects. Prieur and Mafart were identified with the help of aNeighbourhood Watch group and arrested. Both were questioned and investigated. Because they were carryingSwiss passports, their true identities were discovered, along with the French government's responsibility.[8]
The other agents of the French team all escaped from New Zealand. Christine Cabon, whose role had ended before the bombing, had left forIsrael immediately before the sinking. After she was identified as a participant in the operation, Auckland police requested that the Israeli authorities detain her. Cabon was tipped off and fled before she could be arrested.[9]
Three other agents, Chief Petty Officer Roland Verge ("Raymond Velche"), Petty Officer Jean-Michel Bartelo ("Jean-Michel Berthelo") and Petty Officer Gérard Andries ("Eric Audrenc"), who had carried the bombs to New Zealand on the yachtOuvéa, escaped by that yacht and were arrested by Australian police onNorfolk Island. New Zealand sent a team of detectives and a forensic scientist to Norfolk Island to interview the suspects and collect evidence. They required time to analyse the evidence before making arrests. The Australian authorities gave the New Zealand team a day to make a decision, after which the suspects were released. They were then picked up by the French nuclearsubmarineRubis, after theyscuttledOuvéa. New Zealand issued arrest warrants for the Ouvéa crew on 26 July on charges of arson and murder, by which time the crew had left Australian jurisdiction.[10][11]
Several agents, including Jean-Luc Kister, one of the bombers, had posed as tourists. They took a ferry to the South Island, went skiing atMount Hutt, and then left the country using false documents about ten days later.[12] Another agent,Louis-Pierre Dillais, possibly the commander of the operation, was also never captured.[10]
France, being an ally of New Zealand, initially denied involvement and joined in condemning what it described as aterrorist act. The French embassy inWellington denied involvement, stating that "the French Government does not deal with its opponents in such ways".[13]
Once it was realised that the bombing was the action of the government of a friendly state, the New Zealand government stopped referring to it as a "terrorist act", instead calling it "a criminal attack in breach of theinternational law ofstate responsibility, committed on New Zealand sovereign territory". The "breach of international law" aspect was referred to in all communications with theUnited Nations to dissuade any arguments from the French government that might imply justification for their act.[10]
Prieur and Mafart pleaded guilty tomanslaughter and were sentenced to ten years' imprisonment on 22 November 1985. France threatened an economic embargo of New Zealand's exports to theEuropean Economic Community if the pair were not released.[14] Such an action would have crippled theNew Zealand economy, which was dependent on agricultural exports to the United Kingdom.[15]
France launched their own commission of enquiry headed by Bernard Tricot which declared the French government innocent of any involvement in the terrorist act, claiming that the arrested agents, who had not yet pleaded guilty, had merely been spying on Greenpeace. WhenThe Times andLe Monde contradicted these findings by claiming thatPresident Mitterrand had approved the bombing, Defence MinisterCharles Hernu resigned and the head of the DGSE, AdmiralPierre Lacoste, was fired.
Operation Satanic was a public relations disaster. EventuallyPrime MinisterLaurent Fabius admitted the bombing had been a French plot. On 22 September 1985, he summoned journalists to his office to read a 200-word statement in which he said: "The truth is cruel," and acknowledged there had been a cover-up. He went on to say that "Agents of the French secret service sank this boat. They were acting on orders."[16]
Several figures, including then New Zealand Prime MinisterDavid Lange, have referred to the bombing as an act ofterrorism[17] orstate-sponsored terrorism,[18][19][20] with scholars since describing the attack as an act of state terrorism.[21][22][23]
The next nuclear testHéro was conducted at Mururoa on 24 October 1985 with a yield of two kilotonnes of TNT (8.4 TJ). France conducted 54 more nuclear tests until the end of nuclear testing in 1996.[24]
A Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior benefit concert atMount Smart Stadium, Auckland, on 5 April 1986 included performances byHerbs,Neil Young,Jackson Browne,Graham Nash,Topp Twins,Dave Dobbyn and aSplit Enz reunion.[25][26]
Rainbow Warrior was refloated for forensic examination. She was deemed irreparable and scuttled inMatauri Bay, near theCavalli Islands on 12 December 1987, to serve as adive wreck and fish sanctuary.[27] Her masts had been removed and put on display at theDargaville Maritime Museum. Greenpeace acquired a new ship and gave it the nameRainbow Warrior earlier that same year. On 14 October 2011, Greenpeace launched a new sailing vessel, again calledRainbow Warrior, which is equipped with an auxiliary electric motor.[28] The ships are informally known asRainbow Warrior II andRainbow Warrior III, respectively.
In 1987, after international pressure, France paid $8.16m to Greenpeace in damages, which helped finance another ship.[29][30] It also paid compensation to the Pereira family, reimbursing his life insurance company for 30,000Dutch guilders and making reparation payments of 650,000francs to Pereira's wife, 1.5 million francs to his two children, and 75,000 francs to each of his parents.[31]
The failure of Western leaders to condemn a violation of a friendly nation's sovereignty caused a great deal of change in New Zealand's foreign and defence policy.[32] New Zealand distanced itself from the United States, a traditional ally, and built relationships with small South Pacific nations, while retaining excellent relations with Australia and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom.[33]
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In June 1986, in a political deal withPrime Minister of New ZealandDavid Lange, presided over byUnited Nations Secretary-GeneralJavier Pérez de Cuéllar, France agreed to pay NZ$13 million (US$6.5 million) to New Zealand and apologise, in return for whichAlain Mafart andDominique Prieur would be detained at the French military base onHao Atoll for three years. However, the two agents had both returned to France by May 1988, after less than two years on the atoll. Mafart returned to Paris on 14 December 1987 for medical treatment and was apparently freed after the treatment. He continued in the French Army and was promoted to colonel in 1993. Prieur returned to France on 6 May 1988 because she was pregnant, her husband having been allowed to join her on the atoll. She, too, was freed and later promoted. The removal of the agents from Hao without subsequent return was ruled to be in violation of the 1986 agreement.[2]
Following the breach of the arrangement, in 1990 the UNsecretary-general awarded New Zealand another NZ$3.5 million (US$2 million) to establish the New Zealand / France Friendship Fund.[30] Although France had formally apologised to the New Zealand Government in 1986,[34] during a visit in April 1991, French Prime MinisterMichel Rocard delivered a personal apology.[35][36] He said it was "to turn the page in the relationship and to say, if we had known each other better, this thing never would have happened". The Friendship Fund has provided contributions to a number of charity and public purposes.[37] During a visit in 2016, French Prime MinisterManuel Valls reiterated that the incident had been "a serious error".[38]
In 2005, French newspaperLe Monde released a report from 1986, which said that AdmiralPierre Lacoste, head of DGSE at the time, had "personally obtained approval to sink the ship from the late presidentFrançois Mitterrand."[39] Soon after the publication, former Admiral Lacoste came forward and gave newspaper interviews about the situation, admitting that the death weighed on his conscience and saying that the aim of the operation had not been to kill.[40] He acknowledged the existence of three teams: the yacht crew, reconnaissance and logistics (those successfully prosecuted), plus a two-man team that carried out the bombing.[7][41]
A 20th anniversary memorial edition of the 1986 bookEyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior by New Zealand authorDavid Robie—who was aboard the bombed ship—was published in July 2005.[42]
Twenty years after the bombing,Television New Zealand (TVNZ) sought access to a video record made at the preliminary hearing in which the two French agents pleaded guilty. The footage had remained sealed since shortly after the conclusion of the criminal proceedings. The two agents opposed release of the footage and unsuccessfully took the case to theNew Zealand Court of Appeal and, subsequently, theSupreme Court of New Zealand. On 7 August 2006, JusticesHammond,O'Regan andArnold dismissed the former French agents' appeal and TVNZ broadcast their guilty pleas the same day.[43]
In 2005, in an interview with TVNZ,Louis-Pierre Dillais acknowledged his involvement with the bombing.[44]
In 2006, Antoine Royal revealed that his brother,Gérard Royal, had claimed to be involved in planting the bomb. Their sister is FrenchSocialist Party politicianSégolène Royal, who was contesting theFrench presidential election.[45][46] Other sources identified Royal as the pilot of the Zodiac inflatable boat that carried the bombers.[47] The New Zealand government announced there would be no extradition request since the case was closed.[48]
In 2007, the New ZealandGreen Party criticised the government over its purchase of arms from Belgian arms manufacturerFN Herstal, whose U.S. subsidiary was led by Dillais.[44][49] At that time, Greenpeace was still pursuing the extradition of Dillais for his involvement in the act.[50]
In September 2015, TVNZ'sSunday programme tracked down Jean-Luc Kister, one of the two bombers. Kister, who retired from the DGSE in about 2000, admitted his lead role and feelings of responsibility for the lethal attack. He also pointed to the French president, as commander of the armed forces and intelligence services assigned the operation. ReporterJohn Hudson, who spent two days with Kister in France, said that Kister "wanted an opportunity to talk about his role in the bombing... It has been on his conscience for 30 years. He said to us, 'secret agents don't talk', but he is talking. I think he wanted to be understood." Kister considered the mission "a big, big failure".[12][51][52]
Built between 1988 and 1990, a memorial for theRainbow Warrior was created by New Zealandsculptor Chris Booth. The memorial was erected in Matauri Bay in Northland, New Zealand. It was commissioned by Ngati Kura and New Zealand China Clays.[53]
The sinking, and subsequent investigation, was the subject of several films, includingThe Rainbow Warrior Conspiracy (1988),The Rainbow Warrior (1993) and Claudia Pond-Eyley'sDeparture and Return: The Final Journey of the Rainbow Warrior (2006)
Murder in the Pacific is a three-part documentary about the sinking, directed by Chloe Campbell. It was broadcast onBBC2 in March 2023.[54]
The 1985 song "Hercules" by the Australian bandMidnight Oil is about the sinking.[citation needed] In 1990 New Zealand singer/songwriterMartin Curtis recorded and released "The End of the Rainbow", on the albumThe Daisy Patch.[55] The 1989 song "Little Fighter", by the Danish/American bandWhite Lion, is about the sinking. It is also referenced in the 2004 song "Walkampf" by Germanpunk bandDie Toten Hosen. In 2005, a supergroup of New Zealand musicians and artists recorded a cover ofAnchor Me, by the New Zealand rock bandThe Mutton Birds, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the bombing. The song peaked at No. 3 in the New Zealand singles chart.
France committed a serious error, which tainted the friendship uniting our peoples.
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