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Revisiting French Terrorism in the Pacific: Rainbow Warrior Bombing

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Revisiting French Terrorism in the Pacific: Rainbow Warrior Bombing NUCLEAR TERRORISM REVISITING FRENCH TERRORISM IN THE PACIFIC Rainbow Warrior bombing France’s sabotage of the Rainbow Warrior more than two decades ago hogged newspaper headlines during the anniversary last year. But little coverage was given to the actual cause of the bombing – nuclear testing in the South Pacific and the impact on Pacific Islanders. The Rongelapese and Tahitians still suffer from the legacy of decades of American and French nuclear tests. DAVID ROBIE looks at the hypocrisy behind this sordid act of state terrorism in a New Zealand port. leading nuclear-free and pro- independence politician, Oscar Manutahi Temaru, would emerge as the territory’s new president, ushering in a refreshing “new order” with a commitment to pan-Pacific relations. Although independence is nominally off the agenda for the moment, far- reaching changes in the region are inevitable and Temaru rattled Paris in March 2006 when he made a speech in the Cook Islands openly advocating independence for Tahiti Nui. FRANCE AS TERRORIST COUNTRY But traditional Gallic military arrogance was again exposed in The Rainbow Warrior at Marsden Wharf after the bombing. January this year (2006) when Photo Gil Hanly President Jacques Chirac threatened to use nuclear weapons against any A YEAR after Eyes of Fire was This paranoid drama over my country that carried out a state- originally published, in January reporting of the militarisation of East sponsored terrorist attack against it. 1987 and two months before the Fiji Coast villages in an attempt by French During his missile-rattling defence The irony seemed military coup, I was authorities to harass and suppress of the 3 billion euros-a-year nuclear arrested at gunpoint supporters of Kanak independence strike force, he said the target was not lost on Chirac by French troops near featured on the front page of the “fanatical terrorists” but states that that the only the New Caledonian New Zealand Sunday Times and Les used “terrorist means” or “weapons village of Canala. The Nouvelles Calédoniennes in Noumea. It of mass destruction” against France. example ever arrest followed a week was also covered by a regional Pacific The irony seemed lost on Chirac that of state-backed of being tailed by secret news magazine. the only example ever of state-backed agents in Noumea. When Marie-Thérèse and terrorism against New Zealand, terrorism against When I was handed Bengt Danielsson’s then 22-year- aptly called Operation Satanic, was over by the military old damning indictment of French committed by the French secret New Zealand… to local gendarmerie nuclear colonialism, Moruroa, Mon service on 10 July 1985. The attack was committed f or i nter rog at ion, Amour, was republished in 1986 was initially covered up with a litany accusations of my being with new sections under the title of lies, and the hypocrisy of the other by the French a “spy” and questions Poisoned Reign, French intransigence Western nuclear powers, Britain secret service on over my book on the over nuclear testing and demands and the United States, over the R a i n b o w Wa r r i o r for independence in Tahiti was at bombing of a peaceful ship in New 10 July 1985 bombing were made a peak. It seemed unlikely in 1986 Zealand waters and the murder of in the same breath. But that in less than two decades, nuclear an environmental photographer was after about four hours of questioning testing would be finally abandoned breathtaking. I was released. in the South Pacific, and Tahiti’s Chirac’s missile bluster, made at 26 PACIFIC ECOLOGIST AUTUMN 2006 NUCLEAR TERRORISM a naval base near Brest, to the crew three years in exile at a “Club Med”- Television New Zealand’s current of one of four nuclear submarines style nuclear and military base. affairs programme Sunday wanted that carry almost 90 percent of But the bombing scandal did to use the footage. Losing the High France’s nuclear warheads, came a few not end there. The same day as the Court ruling in May 2005, the two months after documents published in scuttling of the Rainbow Warrior in former agents appealed France showed the Rainbow Warrior 1987, the French Government told against the footage documents attack was made with the “personal New Zealand that Major Mafart being broadcast. But authorisation” of the late President had a “serious stomach complaint.” they had lost any published in François Mitterrand. French authorities repatriated spurious claims to France showed A Le Monde newspaper article him back to France in defiance of privacy over the act of on 10 July 2005, published extracts the terms of the United Nations terrorism by publishing the Rainbow from a 1986 account written by agreement and protests from the their own memoirs – Warrior attack Admiral Pierre Lacoste, former head Lange Government. Agent Secrète (Prieur, of France’s DGSE secret service. He 1995) and Carnets was made with said he had asked the president for HONOURING THE Secrets (Mafart, 1999), permission to embark on a plan to TERRORISTS so their guilty pleas the “personal “neutralise” the Rainbow Warrior and It was later claimed by a Tahitian were publicly broadcast authorization” would never have gone ahead without newspaper, Les Nouvelles, that French in New Zealand. his authorisation. Mitterrand’s alleged spy-terrorist, Mafart was smuggled The Danielssons of the late ultimate responsibility is hardly any out of Tahiti on a false passport hours highlighted a public President François surprise. before New Zealand was even told opinion poll by the After being awarded $8 million of the “illness.” Mafart reportedly SOFR E S institute Mitterrand in compensation from France by the assumed the identity of a carpenter, three months after the International Arbitration Tribunal for Serge Quillan. Captain Prieur was Rainbow Warrior bombing to gauge the attack, Greenpeace finally towed also repatriated back to France in what French people thought of the the Rainbow Warrior to Matauri Bay May 1988 because she was pregnant. “Blunderwatergate” scandal. While and scuttled her off Motutapere, in the France ignored the protests by New no questions in the poll directly raised Cavalli Islands, on 12 December 1987 Zealand and the secret agent pair were the social or health implications for to create a living reef. Her namesake, honoured, decorated and promoted the Polynesian people, sixty percent Rainbow Warrior II, formerly, the in their homeland. It’s supreme irony were found to approve French nuclear Grampion Fame, was launched in such an act of terrorism should be so testing (as long as they were in Hamburg four years to the day after honoured in this age of a so-called Polynesia, well away from France). the bombing, on 10 July 1989. On 15 “war on terrorism.” July 1990, a memorial was unveiled In 2005, the French agents’ lawyer, at Matauri Bay featuring an arched Gerard Currie, tried to block footage creation by Kerikeri sculptor Chris of their guilty pleas in court, shown Photographer Fernandez Pereira with Rongelap Islander Booth – incorporating the bombed on closed circuit tv to journalists Bonemej Namwe during the Rainbow Warrior’s Marshall Islands at the time but not seen publicly. voyage in May 1985. ship’s brass propeller. Photo: David Robie An earlier compensation deal for New Zealand, mediated in 1986 by United Nations Secretary- General Javier Perez de Cuellar, awarded the Government $13 million (US$7 million).The money was used for a nuclear-free projects fund and the Pacific Development and Conservation Trust. The agreement included an apology by France and the deportation of jailed secret agents Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur after they had served less than a year of their 10-year sentences for manslaughter and wilful damage of the bombed ship. They were transferred from New Zealand to Hao Atoll in French Polynesia to serve PACIFIC ECOLOGIST AUTUMN 2006 27 NUCLEAR TERRORISM FRENCH REFERENDUM raft voyage across the eastern Pacific nuclear tests for three decades. But EXCLUDES POLYNESIAN Ocean that made a crash-landing she too died in 2003. VIEWS on the atoll of Raroia. He married Elaine Shaw worked for “This represents a ”national consensus,” Marie-Thérèse, a French national, in Greenpeace New Zealand for 16 we are told, which should be respected 1948 and they made their home in years and developed it into the by all peoples in the Pacific,” noted Tahiti. She was very active in local small, lively movement it became the Danielssons. “So far, no French politics and women’s environmental by the time of the bombing. But politician or editorialist has cared to organisations. She was also she was not comfortable mention the embarrassing fact that the founder of Moruroa FRANCE IGNORED with the changes and rapid political, civic and church leaders in e Tatou (Moruroa and PROTESTS BY NEW growth of the organisation French Polynesia have for years been Us), a nuclear veterans’ ZEALAND AND THE after the bombing. She asking the French Government to association. SECRET AGENT worked tirelessly for the organise a local referendum so as to While the Danielssons TERRORIST PAIR people of Rongelap as well allow the people most concerned, the published several scientific WERE HONOURED, as French Polynesia, the islanders themselves, to decide the studies and popular books victims of nuclear testing. issue.” on the islands, they DECORATED AND She continued working The Danielssons were an constantly campaigned PROMOTED IN for a nuclear-free and inspiration to nuclear-free and to expose French nuclear THEIR HOMELAND independent Pacific until independent Pacific campaigners, colonialism. The couple 1990 and then decided to especially in the Cook Islands and were honoured for their commitment take a well-earned break, travelling Tahiti.
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