Rainbow Warrior sinking

[Groovin']

Hey, i was just wondering whether anyone can give me some info / history on the bombing by the Rainbow Warrior by the French in Auckland, New Zealand.

Yeah, i should know, i live here! But alas i have forgotten most of the details, and from reading these threads here, im sure someone here is gonna know a hell of a lot more than me at the moment.

Main point i want to know is why it was ordered....

 

[Jimcat]

It's been a long time since that event, and my memories are kind of hazy. But I think that the French government considered Greenpeace to be "terrorists" because they protested, and planned to sabotage, the French nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific.

 

[Vrylakas]

There was a pretty sappy film made back in the late 1980s (or early 90s) about it, called "Rainbow Warrior", starring Jon Voight and Sam Neill.

Essentially Greenpeace had been monitoring and protesting French nuclear tests in the Pacific and was gearing up for another round when their flagship "Rainbow Warrior" was bombed by the French secret service while re-supplying in New Zealand. The film claims that other intelligence agencies were at least aware (if not involved) of the bombing but the film is also a bit lop-sided in its portrayal. It did cause an international incident of sorts between New Zealand and France, and the two agents (a male and a female) were arrested, tried and convicted for the bombing (which resulted in one person's death). By some old treaty France was allowed to request that the agents be transferred to a French prison, from which they were quietly released a year or two later, despite protests from New Zealand.

 

[Case]

I think that the French got back their agents by threatening New Zealand with trade sanctions and promising that the agents would be imprisoned in France. From memory the Agents were released after a few months in very comfortable jails, much to the anoyance of NZ.

All in all, it wasn't the proudest or smartest moment in French history

 

[Adamski]

Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart (I think) were arrested and found guilty of blowing up the Warrior and killing a Portuguese crewman. These people were agents in the French DGSE or secret service.

There were undoubtedly others as well involved, who got away. NZ authorities tried to get a boat detained I think at Moorea? in Pacific, but I guess the Froggies had more clout with their island lackeys.

Presumably the Frogs didn't like Greenpeace interfering and protesting their wicked nuclear ways, and figured they could just crap on them in little old New Zealand, where the cops would be too slow to figure out anything. As it turned out, it was a mighty embarrassing blunder by the Frogs. I'm sure that they've gotten away with this **** for years in backwaters like the islands or Asia/Africa, but NZ is a modern western democracy so it was frowned upoin somewhat.

Personally I think we should have executed the bastards rather than give them back.:slay:

 

[opinons_R_US]

I agree. They should have been strung up by the nearest sour apple tree.

I think that the man who was killed was a photographer from NZ, who was along for the ride aboard the Rainbow Warrior when it was bombed, in a cowardly act of state-sanctioned terrorism.

I have never seen the movie or any documentaries on the subject, but I did see an excellent doc. on Israeli assassinations of Palestinians, called 'Golda's List'.

The Mossad was quite thorough in wiping out the Palestinian moderates, as well as the members of Black September who planned the 72 Munich Olympic gig. Now all they have left to treat with are Hamas and an ineffectual Yasser Arafat, who was too wily to be taken out.

 

[Groovin']

Thanks everyone for refreshing my memory. How the bastards were given back to France i'll never know.

The reason i brung this thread up is i remember reading something about the topic in a newspaper recently.

Apparently a well respected (cant remember details like names and dates sorry!) photographer or journalist was in the states not too long ago and was having lunch. Then according to him he looked across to another table and spotted a few french guys, one of which he says he recognised as Dominique Prieur.

Well, apparently he went and told a U.S. Cop/security guy, but upon coming back and they were gone, because (according to the photographer) he had known he had been recognised.

Also i think they can still technically be tried and sentenced in NZ if they were to come back to nz.

Well, I dont know if that was of any interest, i thought it was very interesting at the time!

Thanks for the help guys

 

[Vrylakas]

Groovin' wrote: Apparently a well respected (cant remember details like names and dates sorry!) photographer or journalist was in the states not too long ago and was having lunch. Then according to him he looked across to another table and spotted a few french guys, one of which he says he recognised as Dominique Prieur.

Well, apparently he went and told a U.S. Cop/security guy, but upon coming back and they were gone, because (according to the photographer) he had known he had been recognised.

I would have been very, very pleased indeed to see this slimeball arrested and extradicted to New Zealand.

 

[Adebisi]

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[Jimcat]

We've seen recently, with the arrest of Wen Ho Lee, how the United States reacts when it feels that its nuclear security is threatened.

Some people contend that Wen Ho Lee is in fact innocent, and that the US government went too far in its actions. But even if they did go too far, it's worth noting that they didn't blow anything up or kill anyone, nor did they violate the sovereignty of another country in the process.

 

[andycapp]

Originally posted by Adebisi
What? The French should just stand by and watch as GP sabotaged their crucial nuclear experiments? They were terrorists, and France had intelligence. If America knew a few terrorists were gonna sabotage their nuclear tests, do you think they'd just sit back and do nothing?

Adebisi,

As I have commented elsewhere the way in which you analyse a situation appears to have little regard for logic or the facts. The Green Peace activists protesting against French nuclear tests were not guilty of any terrorist or violent acts and at worst they were guilty of entering French territorial waters illegally.

They were legitimately protesting against the possibility of the nuclear contamination of the waters surrounding Muroa Atoll and the possibility of airborne contamination across the South Pacific. Green Peace had widespread support for their activities from people living in the region who felt they were being bullied by an arrogant European colonial power.

Contrast Green Peace's activities with that of the French and work out who the terrorists were. France sends agents to a friendly country (one that had lost thousands of her young men assisting France in two world wars) totally ignoring New Zealand sovereignty and plants a bomb on the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour which results in the destruction of the ship and the death of a Portugese photographer - and you say that Green Peace are the terrorists!

I look forward to a logical and well reasoned explanation for your statements above - I just won't hold my breath!

 

[Adebisi]

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[Case]

Originally posted by Adebisi
I fully support the French for their nuclear tests. If they truly were worried GP would endanger their tests, they had right to stop them. Their methods were indeed bad and gave them bad publicity, yes. I have very little respect for GP and what they're doing though.

Greenpeace was aiming to block the French tests by sailing the Rainbow Warrior into the exclusion zone. The only legal and ethical way to stop this s by siezing the ship when it's inside that zone.
What France did in fact made things worse, as the New Zealand government started sending the naval tanker HMNZS Endevour inside the French exclusion zone.

 

[Groovin']

What? The French should just stand by and watch as GP sabotaged their crucial nuclear experiments? They were terrorists, and France had intelligence. If America knew a few terrorists were gonna sabotage their nuclear tests, do you think they'd just sit back and do nothing?

How excatly were they 'sabotaging' their nuclear tests? It was, when it comes down to it, basically a peaceful protest of nuclear operations and consequenses within the South Pacific. When they (Greenpeace) entered the French exclusive zone, then they had the right, only then, to take action and seize the vessel(s). Untill that happened everything was by and large completely legal in regard to this protest. Entering the exclusion zone was the only illegal part of the protest (correct me if im wrong though)

Why do major nations think they can proceed with operations within less significant countries when if carried out in a much larger / major country all hell would break loose?

 

[Groovin']

If America knew a few terrorists were gonna sabotage their nuclear tests, do you think they'd just sit back and do nothing?

I would think the US would have been a bit more intelligent in regards to the situation... ie:


1. Being in a freindly country (NZ).
2. Reacted by detaining/seizing the offending vessels.
3. The 'sabotage' being entering an controled exclusive zone
4. The 'few' so-called terrorrists being a large, recognised, international organization.


Then again, i could be placing too much faith in the American government of the time, wasnt it around then that they were seriously pissed at us for not allowing any of their nuclear vessels into our waters? (Which was the cause of the dissolution of ANZUS if im not mistaken... im sure one of those good old aussies on here will put me right!! )

 

[allhailIndia]

Greenpeace is a cheap organization dedicated to catching newspaper headlines than doing any solid environmental work. They just seek to show off how much they care about environment, sometimes putting animals before people. Some of you may have heard about the Inuit who lost their livelihood because Greenpeace had seal hunting banned. THe seals the Inuit were hunting were actually overabundant and they never hunted more than necessary as they were not corporations. However some media obsessed ass decided that seals looked to cute and to hell with the Inuit and started off a campaign to ban seal hunting.


With stunts like trying to disrupt nuclear testing, Greenpeace is just announcing how desperate it is for publicity

 

[Rowan]

What's going on? Since when is state sponserd terrorism acceptible. I thought that was what the current hoo/haa was about!
[dance] [dance]

 

[Groovin']

Greenpeace is a cheap organization dedicated to catching newspaper headlines than doing any solid environmental work. They just seek to show off how much they care about environment, sometimes putting animals before people. Some of you may have heard about the Inuit who lost their livelihood because Greenpeace had seal hunting banned. THe seals the Inuit were hunting were actually overabundant and they never hunted more than necessary as they were not corporations. However some media obsessed ass decided that seals looked to cute and to hell with the Inuit and started off a campaign to ban seal hunting.

I whole-heartedly agree with you in that situation, i was only making the point that they are in reality a very large, international and legal organization and that the situation needed to be dealt with a bit more intelligently.... not with state-sponsered terrorism...

i think this bungled french operation only helped further
Greenpeaces cause, commitment and image in the eyes of the public. Bad move, me thinks.

 

[Adebisi]

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[allhailIndia]

Since a lot of people do agree with me, i would like to go further. Until the French took some action against Greenpeace, they were encouraging other psychos to perform stunts "for the environment" and get away with harming others. Even in India, we had ridiculous protests against the construction of major H.E project, which would benefit over a 20 million people, just because a few tribals did not like the place they were being relocated to. For this issue, there were hunger strikes, road blocks, day long marches and general disruption of normal life. And this was led by Arundhati Roy, the Booker prize winning novelist. If any of you come across her, punch her very hard in the nose for me and 20 million other Indians.[punch]