by Plutonium Page
Between 1966 and 1990, the French conducted 115 underground nuclear tests on the Moruroa and Fangtaufa atolls in the South Pacific. The testing resulted in an incredible amount of environmental damage, including leakage of radionuclides into the ocean after several accidents, and complete destruction of parts of each of the atolls.
Greenpeace was among the many anti-nuclear activists protesting the French underground testing in the South Pacific. In June 1985, they planned to participate in a "peace flotilla" to Moruroa, as part of a protest of the French underground nuclear tests, sailing their ship, the Rainbow Warrior. They knew they would possibly face opposition from the French Navy. No one could have predicted the nightmare they were about to face.
From the Greenpeace website:
Dishevelled, and numb with shock, the crew of the Rainbow Warrior stood, staring into the dark waters of Marsden Wharf, the smallest of three commercial piers piercing Auckland's Waitemata Harbour. Before them, lying crippled and half submerged in the water was the Warrior - their home and an international symbol of peace.
Several hours, but what felt like a lifetime, earlier there had been an explosion. Some had been stirred from sleep by a dull, muffled thud, as though something heavy had been dropped on the deck above. Those still awake, and clustered around the small mess room table, were suddenly plunged into darkness.
Everything happened at once. The steady drone of the generator, that formed a constant backdrop to life on board, ceased abruptly, the darkness was marginally lifted by the eerie glow of the emergency lights, the moment of silence was almost instantly replaced with the sharp crack of breaking glass and the sudden ferocious roar of water. Their immediate thought had been that something, possibly a tug, had hit them.
Two minutes later a second explosion: a flash of blue light streaked through the cloudy waters around the ship. Those already on deck scrambled up the ladder or leaped to safety on the wharf. In a matter of minutes they watched as the twin steel masts of the ship tilted towards them.
The Auckland police found that two high explosive devices had been attached to the hull of the Warrior. Photographer Fernando Pereira was killed; the rest of the crew survived.
One of the bombs blew a 2.5 meter hole in the hull of the Warrior: (click to enlarge)
© Greenpeace
The investigation
It's an understatement to say that the investigation of the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was complicated. TV New Zealand reports:
... within 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.
It was an act of international sabotage and Laurent Fabius [the French Prime Minister] says it was hopelessly planned.
[snip]
Fabius says the then Defence Minister not only ordered the bomb attack, but lied about his involvement.
Mafart and Prieur were charged with arson, conspiring to commit arson and murder. Initially they pleaded not guilty, but when they appeared in the high court in Auckland on November 4 1985 the pair changed their pleas.
They admitted a lesser charge of manslaughter and arson and were sentenced on November 22 to 10 years imprisonment on the charge of manslaughter and seven years imprisonment on the charge of arson.
The two agents' sentence was reduced to three years after a settlement between France and New Zealand, resulting in the French goverment paying $NZ 13 million to New Zealand, and US$8 to Greenpeace, which was used to outfit the Rainbow Warrior II
Greenpeace today
The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior did not deter Greenpeace from continuing their environmental activism, including their continued protest of nuclear tests. To those who say that environmentalism is dead, I think you should look at the success of various Greenpeace campaigns. Read through those victories. Pretty impressive.
On a personal note, I had a chance to tour the Greenpeace ship Esperanza today. It was docked here in Amsterdam, and is leaving for Halifax tonight.
As corny as it sounds, they are making a difference. The crew had boundless energy, and is devoted to their work. Environmental activism is alive and well. In fact:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. --- Margaret Mead
That says it all.
from Pete seeger's Clearwater on the Hudson to Greenpeace on the high seas, environmentalism isn't dead. In fact, it's mainstream.
Why else would tony Blair support Kyoto?
Posted by: DemFromCT | July 10, 2005 at 16:01
Tony Blair may be a complete wimp when it comes to Bush, but he's pretty forceful when it comes to environmental issues.
Posted by: Plutonium Page | July 10, 2005 at 16:13
I was pleased to see this story recalled.
It is one of the sharpest reminders of what the West, not just the United States, has done to futher its interests.
It is extraordinary to remember that the French were determined to have their own nuclear bomb. To them it represented prestige at the negotiating tables of the world, the status that de Gaulle craved and independence from the Americans. It marked them out as a world power.
How interesting must they sound in the dialogue with Iran today. Just as the UK, who used Australia as its testing base, must also sound.
Posted by: Keith Barratt | July 10, 2005 at 16:16
I remember the bombing vividly. I was in the middle of a German emersion program, thinking I spoke the language reasonably well. Then the bombing that summer threw me for a loop. Days of discussion in class, and none of it seemed to make sense: Why would the French government blow up a Greenpeace ship? I thought I was suddenly lost in translation. Eventually I figured out that it was the event itself, and not the language, that I did not understand. Still don't understand. What kind of madness led the Defence Minister to think that was even thinkable?
Posted by: smintheus | July 10, 2005 at 16:16
Keith Barratt - Of course, I knew that France had nukes, but today was the first time I had read about the extent of their testing. It was nothing compared to the U.S., Russia, or China, but it was unbelievable, all the same, in terms of environmental damage.
France's arsenal is sizable, especially considering that they're a relatively small country.
More on France's nuclear forces here.
It's very lame, but I don't remember anything about the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior. I was 15 at the time, and must have read it in the newspaper or heard it on the news, but I don't remember it at all.
Posted by: Plutonium Page | July 10, 2005 at 16:21
What I find very odd is that if you take all the proven acts of covert aggression against countries, their institutions and their leaders in the last fifty years, it reads like a conspiracy theorist's dream. Yet ask the average - and not unintelligent - person in the street and they have no consciousness of these events. It is as if they purposely want to disregard them, not want to believe that their representatives in the form of their government could engage in such acts.
Public selective amnesia is an extraodinary thing and makes even more difficult rational discussion.
I remember being assessed once on my views regarding such events over lunch by what I believe was a CIA man whilst being interviewed for a job by a US corporation active in South America and whose meddling in regime change became notorious. "Was I not shocked that a company might engage in such activities", I was asked.
I pleaded lack of knowledge - which seemed the standard and probably genuine answer of most candidates - was later offered the job.... and very firmly declined it!
Posted by: Keith Barratt | July 10, 2005 at 17:34
What I find very odd is that if you take all the proven acts of covert aggression against countries, their institutions and their leaders in the last fifty years, it reads like a conspiracy theorist's dream. Yet ask the average - and not unintelligent - person in the street and they have no consciousness of these events. It is as if they purposely want to disregard them, not want to believe that their representatives in the form of their government could engage in such acts.
Public selective amnesia is an extraodinary thing and makes even more difficult rational discussion.
I remember being assessed once on my views regarding such events over lunch by what I believe was a CIA man whilst being interviewed for a job by a US corporation active in South America and whose meddling in regime change became notorious. "Was I not shocked that a company might engage in such activities", I was asked.
I pleaded lack of knowledge - which seemed the standard and probably genuine answer of most candidates - was later offered the job.... and very firmly declined it!
Posted by: Keith Barratt | July 10, 2005 at 17:36
My apologies for the double post - a common failure of newbies here, I believe.
Whilst apologising, can I repeat my compliments on the site - and for having brought together some of the contributors who represent Kossacks with whom I feel at ease and from whom I learn the most.
Posted by: Keith Barratt | July 10, 2005 at 17:40
Interestingly the only two terrorist events to have taken place in Australia and New Zealand in recent times have been carried out by governments ie. the Rainbow Warrior bombing was perped by the French govt and the Sydney Hilton bombing (1978) which killed three is now almost universally regarded as having been carried out by either the NSW police and/or the Austrlian security organisation, ASIO.
This is in line with the 17th May 1974 Dublin-Monaghan bombings which killed 33 and were carried out with at least the connivance of the RUC and British security forces.
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