Business of Rainbow Warrior

The business of the Rainbow Warrior is a scandal which blames the secret services French, in 1985.

Facts

In July 1985, the Rainbow Warrior , boat of the ecologist organization Greenpeace damping with Auckland in New Zealand. Its goal is to take along other boats towards the atoll of Corky Bucek to protest against the French Nuclear tests and to obstruct them as far as possible.

The French government (under the presidency of François Mitterrand) called upon DGSE to counter this threat. Probably with the request clarifies of the Minister for Defense, Charles Hernu, the admiral Pierre Lacoste, chief of the French secret services, launches the operation Satanic in the urgency. In spite of the protests of the officers of the Management of the operations, the times essential to the preparation and the recognitions are not respected. Two agents of DGSE, operative under the false identity (and Swiss false passports) of the husbands Turenge (Dominique Prior alias Sophie Turenge and Alain Mafart alias Alain Turenge) are charged to carry out the operation. The plan consists in placing under the hull of the ship two explosive loads, a first of low power intended to make then leave the occupants the boat to quay, one second of strong power intended to run it. These two agents are charged to carry out the locations whereas a second team made by sailing ship (Ouvéa) and composed of three agents brings the material. The crew of the sailing ship is composed of Roland Verge, Gerald Andries, and Jean-Michel Barcelo, all three warrant officers in the center of initiation of the naval frogmen of Aspretto in Corsica, and of Doctor Xavier Maniguet. The arsenal is temporarily hidden in the splits of Parangara and Kaouou.

The operation proceeds the July 10th 1985. The material is transferred from the van of the false husband Turenge in the inflatable dinghy of the three naval frogmen. Two of the swimmers pose the bombs and the third controls the boat. The pilot is then identified like the man with the red bonnet . It would be about Gerard Royal (brother of Ségolène Royal) become then Lieutenant-colonel before leaving the army. With 23 h 50, the ship is run but the photographer Dutch, of Portuguese origin , Fernando Pereira, left to recover his photographic equipment after the first explosion, dies in the second. Moreover, the false Turenge husbands are easily stopped by the New Zealand police force of Auckland because of the van which they rented to recover the plungers charged to place the explosives. A coincidence makes that, a certain number of burglings having previously taken place on the port, a watchman placed there in monitoring, seeing this van waiting in a discrete corner notes its serial number, which makes it possible the police force to quickly react.

They are definitively identified as being the bomb planters thanks to their digital fingerprints found under the inflatable dinghy which had been used to pose the bomb. At that time the technique to raise of the prints on an object having remained in water (as it was the case for the lower part of the boat) was far from known. Unfortunately for the false Turenge husband, a team of experts international was on the spot at that time by mere chance and it is them which reflect at disposal their very new know-how and raised the prints which, a few months before would have remained not exploitable.

As of the July 12th with 9:00 of the morning, the New Zealand police force challenges two Swiss tourists provided with false paper, the " false Turenge" husband; , which is in fact the two agents of the DGSE, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur. Being wary, the superintendent Alban Galbraith, chief of the Criminal Investigation Branch send 2 telexes, one with London, the other with Bern. The answer arrives the July 14th: these passports are forgeries. The New Zealand press starts to blame the French special services.

They are accused of murder the July 23rd. New Zealand the Prime Minister, David Lange, shows " foreign elements " to have taken share with the attack, aiming France implicitly. The July 26th, New Zealand justice launches a mandate of international stop against the passengers of the sailing ship Ouvéa, which weighed the anchor of Auckland the day before of the sabotage and against the agent of the DGSE which had infiltrated the organization before the operation to make locations.

Whereas the minister denies any implication of the DGSE, the imminence of the publication of compromising documents decides François Mitterrand to order the August 6th a report/ratio with the adviser of State Bernard Tricot, given the August 26th and which bleaches the DGSE, causing even the doubts of the Prime Minister Laurent Fabius. After the revelation the September 17th by the daily newspaper Le Monde of the existence of a third team whereas the defense of France was based on impossibility for the false Turenge husband and the men of Ouvéa to have made the attack, the scandal rebounds. Two days later, the President claims with its Prime Minister for the sanctions. The September 20th, the Minister for Defense Charles Hernu resigns and the admiral Pierre Lacoste is dismissed. The 22, Laurent Fabius ends up admitting on television that the French secret services had conducted the attack of the Rainbow Warrior .

The November 4th 1985, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur appear before the court of Auckland for the first auditions ; they plead guilty Manslaughter. The November 22nd, the French agents are condemned to 10 years of prison. They are transferred in July 1986 on the atoll from Hao in Polynésie then repatriated in France.

The lawsuit was filmed in spite of the opposition of the French, then was diffused on a national chain starting from September 26th, 2006. The French agents were déboutés by the New Zealand jurisdictions of their opposition to the diffusion of the video of the lawsuit.

It had been planned by the French services to degrade the Gazole ship by pouring Bactéries in the tanks, before retaining the option of the bomb.

September 29th, 2006, Antoine Royal declares with the press that his brother Gerard Royal would have praised to have posed itself the bomb, what the lunatic interested party . The Prime Minister excluded all new action concerning Rainbow Warrior taking into account the international engagements taken between France and the Zealand News.

The New Zealand point of view

In addition to the specific infringements created by the international instruments against terrorism, the New Zealand legislation does not establish a generic infringement called “terrorist act”. However, several terrorist acts are regarded as infringements with the title of the current Penal code. Thus pursuant to the law on criminality, were continued two agents responsible for the attack to the explosive against Rainbow Warrior, the only terrorist attack perpetrated in New Zealand to date.
The New Zealand Government thinks that the “terrorist activity” should be regarded as a factor worsening in the determination of the sorrow to the title of the law on the reform of the sorrows and the parole whose Parliament is currently seized. The “terrorist activity” will also appear among the factors justifying a sorrow of imprisonment of at least 17 years in the event of murder. The Government is also of opinion that the second law on terrorism should recognize off-shore competence for any infringement made by New Zealand citizens in the perpetration of a terrorist act, such as it is defined in the law on the repression of the terrorisme.
As it was already indicated, the only judgments obtained in New Zealand for terrorist activities had milked with the attack with the explosive perpetrated against Rainbow Warrior by French agents in the port of Auckland on July 10th, 1985. Two of the agents, the commander Alain Mafart and the captain Dominique Prior, were recognized guilty of manslaughter on the person of a dead team member when the boat sank and were condemned to 10 years of imprisonment. Following an arbitration, the agents were expelled towards the atoll of Hao in French Polynesia, pursuant to an agreement concluded between France and New Zealand. They were slackened and are turned over to France 18 months later. Another arbitration concluded that they were released in violation of the Agreement. The business was regulated when excuses were presented and a compensation versed for New Zealand|Extract of the Report/ratio submitted to the Committee against terrorism pursuant to paragraph 6 of the resolution 1373 (2001) safety advice, dated September 28th, 2001

It was also the most serious violation of the territorial sovereignty which ever New Zealand underwent. It was an terrorist act supported by a State, an act of war|The New Zealand former minister Geoffrey Micrometer caliper

The Lacoste report/ratio

In a confidential relationship dated from the April 8th 1986, remained secret until July 2005, the admiral Lacoste supports that

it is the March 19th 1985 which Mr. Patrick Careil, principal private secretary of Mr. Charles Hernu, explicitly asked him to implement the means of the DGSE to prohibit with the Greenpeace movement to carry out his projects of intervention against the countryside of the French nuclear tests with Moruroa, at the summer 1985.

He explains why the action against Greenpeace was given, according to him, with the agreement of the president François Mitterrand:

Received in audience by the president of the Republic, the May 15th at 6 p.m., I had put this question at the first point of about a day (...). I asked the President if it authorized to me to implement the project of neutralization which I had studied at the request of Charles Hernu. It gave me its agreement by expressing the importance which it attached to the nuclear tests. I did not then go into a greater detail of the project, the authorization was sufficiently explicit.

The Minister for defense will resign in particular to cover the President. In 1985, the Admiral Pierre Lacoste was replaced by the general Rene Imbot with the head of DGSE.

Epilog

The business involves a crisis in the relations between France and New Zealand. Following the abandonment by France of its declaration of obligatory jurisdiction in 1974, the business is not treated by the the International Court of Justice. The two parts call upon the General secretary of the United Nations (at this time Javier Pérez de Cuéllar) while requiring of him to make a payment obligatory for the two parts, which it does in July 1986.

The decision grants double damages to New Zealand: initially, a satisfaction in the shape of official excuses of France, then, a repair of seven million Dollar S of damages. The July 9th, three agreements in the form of exchanges of letters are signed to regulate the problem. In accordance with these agreements, the two French agents are transferred on the island from Hao in French Polynésie with prohibition to return in metropolis during 3 years. But the December 14th 1987, ordering it Mafart is repatriated for medical reasons, follow-up the May 6th 1988 of the Prieur captain, about to be confined and its dying father. New Zealand then carries the business in front of an arbitration court. The relations between the two countries will remain tended many years. In 1987, France will pour 8,16 million dollars of allowances to Greenpeace.

France abstained from being opposed to the entry on the European territory of the meat of lamb and sheep coming from Nouvelle Zealand, which slices with its practice to defend the interests of agriculture, which some charge to a tacit agreement belonging to the shutter of repairs of France to the Zealand News.

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