Shock of Rainbow Warrior bombing continues to reverberate

Tuesday, 18 April 2023

The Dominion front page on July 12, 1985, told Wellingtonians what no one thought possible - New Zealand had been the victim of terrorism.

With The Dominion Post soon to become simply The Post, we look back at some of the biggest stories the publication and its predecessors have produced.

When the Rainbow Warrior was sunk on July 10, 1985, Wellington’s two daily newspapers did not realise the magnitude of what had occurred.

The Greenpeace vessel, which later that year was scheduled to lead anti-French nuclear protests at Mururoa, was moored in Auckland when it was ripped apart by two mines placed by French spies.

Initially, it received limited coverage in the capital. On July 11, The Evening Post briefly noted there had been an explosion and one person was dead.

“Barefoot, bedraggled and wrapped in a blanket, Mr Peter Wilcox, American skipper of the boat, said, ‘We don’t know what happened. There were some loud bangs. The boat shook and we sunk within four minutes. I only had time to walk off’.”

**READ MORE:

* New Zealand shipwrecks you can visit

* Editorial: Rainbow Warriors' dream of nuclear free world still way off

From 2015, John Hudson’s exclusive interview with the frogman who planted the bombs.

* Thirty-two years after the Rainbow Warrior bombing, unrepentant French spy Christine Cabon is found

* Jonathan Milne: Unmasked Rainbow Warrior spy should be stripped of her Legion d'honneur medal

The Rainbow Warrior the day after the bombing.

Over the next 38 years, the Rainbow Warrior’s demise would become a news staple.

On July 12, The Dominion published “Terrorists sank Warrior”, with a subheading “Limpet mines linked to blasts”. It was a wake-up call for all New Zealanders.

Fernando Pereira was a freelance Dutch photographer, of Portuguese origin, who drowned when underwater mines sank the Rainbow Warrior.

Over the next few weeks more detail slowly trickled out.

On July 24, the case took a sensational turn when two members of the French secret service were arrested. Saboteurs Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur, now charged with murder, quickly became household names.

The Evening Post sent two reporters to cover their trial, including Suzanne Carty, who later became editor of The Dominion.

Pictures of Mafart and Prieur in court, and hiding their face, became regular features of the coverage. The pair were found guilty and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment.

When the Government subsequently buckled to French pressure to let them go, there was outrage.

Mafart and Prieur were supposed to be kept on a French atoll, but their government proved untrustworthy and they were soon back in Paris.

New Zealand received an apology and $13 million in compensation, but on July 9, 1986, The Dominion was scathing of Prime Minister David Lange for agreeing to the deal.

Noting that Lange had assured the country that the agents “were not for sale” and there was “not a dog’s show” they would be released, The Dominion did not shy away from making its view of Lange clear.

“The public must be wondering how much longer we can continue with Mr Lange’s loud and boastful rhetoric, brave and boastful undertakings of his government which are broken with such apparent ease.”

Lange had made New Zealand “look foolish” internationally.

“We did not expect to extract revenge, but we did expect our sovereignty and interests to be protected.”

The image of Dominique Prieur featured regularly in our daily papers.

Like the sinking of the Wahine, Wellington’s daily papers never lost interest.

In recent years most stories were about the people involved with Greenpeace always keen to remember that there was a victim in the affair, photographer Fernando Pereira.

In 2016, The Dominion Post recorded that French spy Jean-Luc Kister, who had planted the bombs, had broken his silence.

He conceded the operation was a 'a big, big failure' and it had weighed on his conscience ever since.

'For us it was just like using boxing gloves in order to crush a mosquito. It was a disproportionate operation, but we had to obey the order, we were soldiers,' he said.

The need to remember the bombing was a regular feature in letters to the editor.

In May 2003, John Ansell wrote: “When will [then] French President Jacques Chirac visit New Zealand? The anniversary of the Rainbow Warrior bombing seems as good a date as any. With ‘very, very’ good friends like France, who needs enemies? Or allies?”

In April 2003, Richard Bacon wrote: “France launched an attack on New Zealand soil without the backing of the Security Council when it destroyed the Rainbow Warrior. New Zealand must distance itself from France. A Europe dominated by France is not a Europe with which we can feel comfortable.”

In October 2021, Rob Buchanan wrote to The Dominion Post. “Hearing that President Macron is planning to finally recognise his country's brutal treatment of Algerians in France 60 years ago, could NZ hope that he makes a similar gesture to one of its liberating World War I and WW2 allies, New Zealand, for the bombing of the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior?”

Subsequent letter writers noted the French had in fact apologised, but the message that France could not be trusted was clear.

The last word should go to Allan Galbraith, who headed the Rainbow Warrior bombing investigation.

In 2017, the former police officer acknowledged justice had not been served but said France had done lasting damage to its reputation.

“Later once the dust had settled and we had time to think what it was all about, I guess we became – like every other Kiwi – frustrated, annoyed and disappointed that France even considered carrying out an attack like that.”