M
MjM
Guest
Its the 10th anniversary. So i thought i'd compile an article about the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by the French Secret Service. Its abit of a change of pace from the usual US-centric threads. Long read, but i think its interesting, kinda relevant in regard to the CIA scandal in Italy. Enjoy?
Background
By 1973, the major powers had signed a Partial Nuclear Weapons Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited atmospheric nuclear tests. However, France continued to conduct atmospheric tests at Mururoa Atoll, south east of Tahiti. The New Zealand Government decided to protest these weapons tests, in conjunction with taking legal action through the World Court. During June 1973, HMNZS Otago was despatched to monitor the tests, while HMAS Supply was provided by the Australian Government to sustain the frigate on station. Subsequently HMNZS Canterbury relieved Otago, until the test series had ended in August 1973.
Reacting to an election promise by the Labour Party, the people of New Zealand decided early in 1985 that they no longer wanted nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered ships coming to their ports. Until that time these ships had been, almost exclusively, American naval ships on shore leave. The ships themselves, and the sailors, were welcome, but the nukes were not.
New Zealand had established itself as the forerunner in the anti nuclear movement.
For any of you who want to know what a leaders debating skills should be like:
http://publicaddress.net/default,1578.sm
As well as the formal protest's from the NZ and Australian governments, Greenpeace had been actively protesting the tests as well, by sending protest vessels.
The Bombing
On the night of July 10 1985 the Rainbow Warrior had been docked in Auckland harbour for three days while preparations for the protest voyage to the nuclear test site at Moruroa Atoll were finalised.
At 11:49 an electric blue flash was seen in the water beside the Warrior, quickly followed by a huge explosion.
Fernando Pereira, a Portugese photographer, was worried about his cameras. He called out that he was going below to get them. He was quickly followed by Martini, who couldn't find his partner Hanne Sorensen and was worried she might still be in their cabin. The two men skidded down the stairs together. Martini checked out the cabin in scant seconds and made for the deck again, then the wharf. Fernando was in his cabin when the second blast went off, barely two minutes after the first.
When they arrived, the wharf area was already cordoned off and they were directed to the Wharf Police Station, where the crew,some wrapped in blankets, sat pale-faced and in shock. It was 2 am.
By 4 am divers had recovered Fernando's body. He had drowned, trapped in his cabin, the straps of his camera bag tangled around one leg.
As it emerged that the bombing was a deliberate act of sabotage, there was little doubt in Greenpeace minds who was responsible. Two days after the bombing the French Embassy in Wellington issued a statement echoing the flat denials emanating from Paris. 'In no way is France involved,' it declared. 'The French Government doesn't deal with its opponents in such ways.' But within a few days police had arrested French secret service agents Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur as they tried to return their van to an Auckland hire company. While they were held in custody, the charter yacht Ouvea, carrying another team of agents implicated in the bombing, sailed to Norfolk Island and then disappeared a few days out to sea heading north for Tahiti. Her crew was reportedly picked up by the French nuclear submarine Rubis, which turned up in Tahiti on July 22 - the first time a French nuclear submarine had been known to enter the South Pacific.
The international outcry pressured the French Government into setting up its own inquiry. After less than three weeks the head of the inquiry, Bernard Tricot, a former Director-General of the Elysee Palace, announced, 'On the basis of the information available to me at this time, I do not believe there was any French responsibility.' The French agents caught in New Zealand were merely there to spy on Greenpeace, Tricot implied, not to bomb them.
Charged with murder and arson, on 4 November Mafart and Prieur, just two of a much larger team of saboteurs, pleaded guilty in the High Court at Auckland to lesser charges of manslaughter and wilful damage and were each sentenced to ten years' jail. Their guilty plea ensured that the facts of the police investigation would never be made public.
The wheels of international diplomacy turned around, the French made various thinly-veiled threats to New Zealand's trade access to the EEC, and New Zealand had to give the agents back to serve French justice. The agents received only a mild rebuke.
Background
By 1973, the major powers had signed a Partial Nuclear Weapons Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited atmospheric nuclear tests. However, France continued to conduct atmospheric tests at Mururoa Atoll, south east of Tahiti. The New Zealand Government decided to protest these weapons tests, in conjunction with taking legal action through the World Court. During June 1973, HMNZS Otago was despatched to monitor the tests, while HMAS Supply was provided by the Australian Government to sustain the frigate on station. Subsequently HMNZS Canterbury relieved Otago, until the test series had ended in August 1973.
Reacting to an election promise by the Labour Party, the people of New Zealand decided early in 1985 that they no longer wanted nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered ships coming to their ports. Until that time these ships had been, almost exclusively, American naval ships on shore leave. The ships themselves, and the sailors, were welcome, but the nukes were not.
New Zealand had established itself as the forerunner in the anti nuclear movement.
For any of you who want to know what a leaders debating skills should be like:
http://publicaddress.net/default,1578.sm
As well as the formal protest's from the NZ and Australian governments, Greenpeace had been actively protesting the tests as well, by sending protest vessels.
The Bombing
On the night of July 10 1985 the Rainbow Warrior had been docked in Auckland harbour for three days while preparations for the protest voyage to the nuclear test site at Moruroa Atoll were finalised.
At 11:49 an electric blue flash was seen in the water beside the Warrior, quickly followed by a huge explosion.
Fernando Pereira, a Portugese photographer, was worried about his cameras. He called out that he was going below to get them. He was quickly followed by Martini, who couldn't find his partner Hanne Sorensen and was worried she might still be in their cabin. The two men skidded down the stairs together. Martini checked out the cabin in scant seconds and made for the deck again, then the wharf. Fernando was in his cabin when the second blast went off, barely two minutes after the first.
When they arrived, the wharf area was already cordoned off and they were directed to the Wharf Police Station, where the crew,some wrapped in blankets, sat pale-faced and in shock. It was 2 am.
By 4 am divers had recovered Fernando's body. He had drowned, trapped in his cabin, the straps of his camera bag tangled around one leg.
As it emerged that the bombing was a deliberate act of sabotage, there was little doubt in Greenpeace minds who was responsible. Two days after the bombing the French Embassy in Wellington issued a statement echoing the flat denials emanating from Paris. 'In no way is France involved,' it declared. 'The French Government doesn't deal with its opponents in such ways.' But within a few days police had arrested French secret service agents Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur as they tried to return their van to an Auckland hire company. While they were held in custody, the charter yacht Ouvea, carrying another team of agents implicated in the bombing, sailed to Norfolk Island and then disappeared a few days out to sea heading north for Tahiti. Her crew was reportedly picked up by the French nuclear submarine Rubis, which turned up in Tahiti on July 22 - the first time a French nuclear submarine had been known to enter the South Pacific.
The international outcry pressured the French Government into setting up its own inquiry. After less than three weeks the head of the inquiry, Bernard Tricot, a former Director-General of the Elysee Palace, announced, 'On the basis of the information available to me at this time, I do not believe there was any French responsibility.' The French agents caught in New Zealand were merely there to spy on Greenpeace, Tricot implied, not to bomb them.
Charged with murder and arson, on 4 November Mafart and Prieur, just two of a much larger team of saboteurs, pleaded guilty in the High Court at Auckland to lesser charges of manslaughter and wilful damage and were each sentenced to ten years' jail. Their guilty plea ensured that the facts of the police investigation would never be made public.
The wheels of international diplomacy turned around, the French made various thinly-veiled threats to New Zealand's trade access to the EEC, and New Zealand had to give the agents back to serve French justice. The agents received only a mild rebuke.
