The Rainbow Warrior (Mark 1) was the flagship of the international environmental organisation "Greenpeace", a bunch of intellectual hippies who campaign on behalf of the Earth's endangered species and ecosystems. The Rainbow Warrior (and other Greenpeace ships) would sail from cause to cause, bringing international attention to international environmental issues. They would also endeavour to stop the efforts of those busy raping the planet, often at great risk to themselves, by using the ship as a barrier; for example, in the case of whale hunting, the protesters would place the boat between the whaling ship and the school of whales. Often, the whaling ship would use the harpoon gun anyway, and God help any protestor who got in the way of it. This tactic of direct but non-violent protest was successful in bringing attention to many causes, much to the chagrin of those countries or companies having attention brought against them.
One of these countries is France. Now, at this point I should disclose my English roots and acknowledge that, as neighbouring nations, we have a bit of shared history going back many years, which is entirely their fault 'cause they started it. On a more personal note, I shall never forgive France for the four years of French language classes that I had to endure taught by Mrs. Powell. Now that I've declared all conflicts of interest, on with the show.
Past History
France and Greenpeace have come to blows a couple of times in the last thirty or so years thanks to the French government's insistence on testing nuclear weapons in the South Pacific. In 1973, a group of French commandos boarded Greenpeace's other ship, the Vega, where they proceeded to give a sound beating to David McTaggart and crew for their insistence on protesting against the country's weapons tests. France later claimed that they had merely boarded the ship and that all injuries sustained by those onboard were the result of walking into a door. Unfortunately for France, one crew member managed to take 13 incriminating photos showing the commandos (armed with knives and batons) assaulting McTaggart, and throwing the video camera that had been used to capture this moment by a quick-thinking crew member overboard. So, much embarrassment caused for the French government, and a new-found tendency for the French Minister of Defence, Charles Hernu, to hit the ceiling every time McTaggart's name was mentioned from that day forth.
The Bombing of the Rainbow Warrior
In 1985, the Rainbow Warrior was berthed in Auckland harbour, New Zealand, preparing to sail to Moruroa (often incorrectly called the Moruroa Atoll) near Tahiti, again to protest against France's planned atmospheric nuclear weapons testing there. Just before midnight on the 10th July, two bombs were detonated, causing the ship to sink, and resulting in the death of a Portuguese photographer (and green campaigner), Fernando Pereira. The other 11 members of the crew fortunately escaped unharmed.
Slowly, the facts of what had happened started to filter through. Direction Générale des Services Extérieurs (DGSE, or French secret service) agents under the orders of the French government, had smuggled explosives into New Zealand using a yacht, the Ouvéa, which sailed into Parengarenga harbour in the Northland region of the country on the 22nd June. The Ouvéa had, in turn, picked up the explosives from a French submarine somewhere in the South Pacific seas. The explosives were driven down to Auckland in the back of a campervan to rendezvous with the agents who were to plant the limpet mines on the hull of the Rainbow Warrior in order to prevent it from being able to sail to the Moruroa testing site.
The bombing resulted in international condemnation of France's actions, and a national outrage in France itself. To be fair, I'm sure that a proportion of the French population were angry that their government had perpetrated what was essentially an act of international terrorism in the territory of a friendly nation against a peaceful-protest organisation. However, the vast majority of the populace were more pissed off with the government for getting caught in the act rather than for committing it; the prevailing attitude of the public was that France had the right to sink the Rainbow Warrior. And the French wonder why they're unpopular.
Incompetent? Moi?
The ineptness with which the DGSE had conducted the operation was ridiculed by French cartoonists for months after the story broke. A huge trail of evidence led to the French as the perpetrators; not least was the record of telephone calls made by agents to loved ones in France from their hotel rooms. Undercover operation? What undercover operation? One DGSE operative later commented that the agents might as well have left a beret, a baguette and a bottle of Beaujolais at the scene. Not only was the operation itself a complete shambles, the resultant attempt at a cover-up by the French government was also a textbook case of "How not to do it". Various claims were made by the DGSE to throw law enforcement agencies and journalists off the scent: Pereira was a KGB agent; the Rainbow Warrior carried equipment capable of analysing the effects and parameters of a neutron bomb; the entire affair was a plot by MI6 to discredit France. The last claim sparked a fierce debate as to whether the French Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas, owed the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, an apology for stirring up Anglo-Saxon prejudices in order to deflect attention from the truth: that the French government had put into effect plans that had had roots from the 1970s on how to deal with ecological protest ships that campaigned against French interests.
The entire affair was a great embarrassment to the DGSE. In the end, Charles Hernu (the French Minister of Defence who'd been in power during the previous run-in with Greenpeace) decided to resign his post, and Admiral Pierre Lacoste (the Head of Intelligence Services) was dismissed. As for the agents who actually perpetrated the bombing? Only two were ever brought to justice, Major Alain Marfat and Captain Dominique Prieur. While the New Zealand government knew that at least four others were involved, France refused to give up its agents to the New Zealand police. Marfat and Prieur were only caught by sheer bad luck on their part, and actually played only a small part in the operation itself. They were posing as a Swiss married couple, the Turenges, and were arrested after they were spotted picking up the equipment that had been jettisoned by the frogmen who had planted the limpet mines on the ship. Closer examination of the couple revealed that their Swiss passports were obvious forgeries, and that 'Sophie Turenges' was found to possess a notebook which contained several Parisian phone numbers. When the New Zealand police investigated these numbers, the DST were only too happy to confirm that that they belonged to the French Defence Ministry. Marfat and Prieur were charged with arson and murder for their part in L'Affaire Rainbow Warrior.
Justice for all...?
France economically and politically bully-boyed New Zealand, but were unable to get their agents off the hook completely. Eventually, the two pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, as the evidence for the former charges was unconvincing. The couple made it clear that the death of crew members was not the intention, and that the detonations had been deliberately timed to give the crew a chance to escape. The two bombs were detonated separately; the first, smaller explosion caused the crew to evacuate the ship. However, Pereira had journalistic experience and was the only member of the crew to fully realise the significance of the dull thud that had caused them to flee. He ran back to his room to collect his camera equipment so that he could take photos of the events that were taking place. He didn't realise that there was a second bomb, and four minutes later it was detonated, sinking the ship and trapping Pereira. He was later found drowned, with a camera slung around his neck. Leaked information from the DGSE showed that plans to bomb the Rainbow Warrior at sea had been vetoed, and if the intention had been to cause the death of Greenpeace campaigners, then the explosions would have been timed for earlier in the evening to coincide with a peace flotilla meeting that was hosted on board attended by a considerable number of Greenpeace members. However, the lack of a warning phone message smacked in the judicial eyes of a complete lack of regard for human life. The French public were thunderstruck when a sentence of ten years imprisonment on the Hoa Atoll (a French base 500 nautical miles from Tahiti) was given; they honestly thought that the agents would be released in exchange for favourable trade agreements between France and New Zealand. As it was, they only served two years thanks to the interference of the then President of France, Jacques Chirac. Marfat was sent home in December 1987 after contracting gastroenteritis. Prieur's digestive system was made of stronger stuff however, so Chirac resorted to sending her husband to Hao, with the aim of knocking her up. In May 1988, an expectant Prieur returned triumphant to France to receive a hero's welcome. France's failure to adhere to the terms of imprisonment was frowned on by a UN tribunal, and it was ordered to pay NZ$2 million in compensation to the New Zealand authorities. This was in addition to the undisclosed amounts the country had already paid out as compensation to Greenpeace and to the relatives of Pereira.
A final resting place
The wreck of the Rainbow Warrior remained moored in Auckland Harbour; while it was being stripped of salvageable parts, negotiations were being brokered for her final resting place. Eventually, on the 12th December 1987, she was towed out to the Cavalli Islands in Northland, and allowed to sink. Her masts were bought by a museum in Dargaville, and a bird hide in Thames was dedicated to the memory of Fernando Pereira. This year, a plaque to commemorate the twenty year anniversary of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior was placed on the wreck.
Greenpeace used the compensation paid to it by the French government to buy up and refit a larger ship, which also bears the moniker of Rainbow Warrior. In 1995, the French announced that they were resuming nuclear testing in the South Pacific. The Rainbow Warrior (Mark 2) actually made it to the Moruroa test site exclusion zone before being stormed by French commandos. It seems the French are a bit touchy when it comes to nuclear testing.
Meanwhile the original Rainbow Warrior is often visited as a recreational scuba diving site. Wreck diving is a fantastic pastime, and the wreck of the Rainbow Warrior is beautifully preserved in the sub-tropical waters off the Cavallis. Part of the enjoyment of diving a wreck is researching its history, but nothing quite beats sitting on the ocean floor and trying to imagine it as it once was. Lying at 27m, the Rainbow Warrior is now aptly named thanks to a carpet of jewel anemones that have covered her skeletal remains. It is home to many different fish species, and one particularly grumpy scorpion fish which refused to come out and play with me. Which was probably to my benefit, seeing how it's a damn sight more poisonous than I am.
My feelings about the circumstances of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior are slightly dichotomous. On the one hand, an innocent man died because a country was being annoyed and inconvenienced by a group of protestors. On the other, if I was in the employ of Her Majesty's Secret Service, I'd be a tad put out if, having carried out my duty, I was promptly handed over to the country I was doing my duty in to be made to answer for my crimes. I think this is one of life's grey areas; I prefer to look at the history and see that a man died doing what he thought was right for a cause that he believed in, and that's the most that any of us, as individuals, can hope for in life.
References
- King M, 1986 "Death of the Rainbow Warrior", 1st edition, Penguin Books
- Porch D, 1995, "The French Secret Services: From the Dreyfus Affair to the Gulf War", 1st edition, Farrar Straus & Giroux
- Sunday Times, 1986, "Rainbow Warrior: French Attempt to Sink Greenpeace", 1st edition, Arrow