SINK THE RAINBOW An Enquiry Into The Greenpeace Affair
John Dyson with Joseph Fitchett (1986) $24
Rainbow Warrior was a Greenpeace boat active in supporting a number of anti-whaling, anti-seal hunting, anti-nuclear testing and anti-nuclear waste dumping campaigns during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (the French intelligence service) bombed Rainbow Warrior in the Port of Auckland, New Zealand on 10 July 1985, sinking the ship and killing photographer Fernando Pereira.
Rainbow Warrior was commissioned by the UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) as a trawler called Sir William Hardy. She was built in 1955, in Aberdeen, Scotland. She was later purchased by the enviromental organisation Greenpeace UK.
In 1977 the ship was acquired by Greenpeace UK at a cost of £37,000 and underwent a four-month refit. She was re-launched on 2 May 1978 as Rainbow Warrior. The ship was named by Greenpeace co-founder Susi Newborn after the book Warriors of the Rainbow which she had been given by another Greenpeace co-founder, Robert Hunter. The book's rhetoric included this passage: "The world is sick and dying, the people will rise up like Warriors of the Rainbow”.
After a series of high-profile campaigns in the North Atlantic, including two escapes from captivity in Spain resulting in the resignation of the Admiral of the Spanish Navy, Rainbow Warrior made her way to North America where she underwent modification in 1981 and the fitting of sails in a ketch rig in 1985.
In early 1985, Rainbow Warrior was in the Pacific Ocean campaigning against nuclear testing. In May, she relocated 300 Marshall Islanders from Rongelap Atoll from, which had been polluted by radioactivity from past American nuclear tests at the Pacific Proving Grounds.
She then travelled to New Zealand to lead a flotilla of yachts protesting against French nuclear testing at the Muruoa Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia.
During previous nuclear tests at Mururoa, protest ships had been boarded by French commando 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.
DGSE agent Christine Cabon infiltrated the Auckland offices of the organisation and secretly monitored communications from Rainbow Warrior, collected maps, and investigated underwater equipment. French agents posing as interested supporters or tourists also toured the ship while she was open to public viewing.
Rainbow Warrior, then captained by Peter Wilcox, was sabotaged and sunk just before midnight NZST on 10 July 1985, by two explosive devices attached to the hull by operatives of the French intelligence service (DGSE). One of the twelve people on board, photographer Fermando Pereira, returned to the ship after the first explosion to attempt to retrieve his equipment, and was killed when the ship was sunk by the second, larger explosion.
A homicide inquiry began and two French agents were tackled and arrested. The revelations of French involvement caused a political scandal and the French Minister of Defence Charles Hernu resigned. The captured French agents were imprisoned, but later transferred to French custody. They were confined to the French military base on the Island of Hao for a brief period before being released. After facing international pressure, France agreed to pay compensation to Greenpeace, and later admissions from the former head of the DGSE revealed that three teams had carried out the bombings.
In addition to those successfully prosecuted, two DGSE divers, Jacques Camurier and Alain Tonel, had carried out the actual bombing, but their identities have never been officially confirmed. On 22 September 1985, the French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius 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."
Following the sinking, Greenpeace and the French Republic entered into an agreement to submit Greenpeace's claims against France to international arbitration. The arbitral tribunal, seated in Geneva, Switzerland, was composed of three members (Professor Claude Reymond, Sir Owen Woodhouse and Professor Francois Terre) and rendered an award in 1987 in favour of Greenpeace, ordering France to pay it US$8.1 million.
David McTaggart, Greenpeace's chairman, described the award as "a great victory for those who support the right of peaceful protest and abhor the use of violence."Greenpeace was represented by Lloyd Cutler and Gary Born of Wilmer Cutler & Pickering.
The wreck of Rainbow Warrior was re-floated on 21 August 1985 and moved to a naval harbour for forensic examination. Although the hull had been recovered, the damage was too extensive for repair and the vessel was scuttled in Matauri Bay in the Cavalli Islands, New Zealand, on 12 December 1987, to serve as a dive wreck and artificial reef to promote marine life. The hull is now covered with a large colony of varicoloured sea anemones. The masts were salvaged and now stand outside the Dargaville Museum.
A second ship, also named Rainbow Warrior, was acquired in 1989 whilst a third ship of the same name was built from scratch and launched in October 2011.
PUBLISHER: Victor Gollancz Ltd. London. Cardcover 215mm x 136mm. 192 pages. ISBN: 0575038675. Weight: 280g.
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