'We're the terrorists': Rainbow Warrior spy speaks out after 32 years

Friday, 7 July 2017

Fernando Pereira was a freelance Dutch photographer, sleeping in his Rainbow Warrior when French combat divers used two underwater mines to sink the ship. He drowned - but his daughter Marelle Pereira has continued to campaign for justice for her father.

A French undercover agent who eluded police after the Rainbow Warrior attack has broken a 32-year silence – but she refuses to say 'sorry'.

Aged 33, Christine Cabon infiltrated Greenpeace by pretending to be environmental activist Frederique Bonlieu. She gathered key information ahead of the July 10, 1985, bombing that killed photographer Fernando Pereira. She left for Israel before the attack, then fled to France just as police were about to arrest her – and disappeared from public view.

French secret service agent Christine Cabon refuses to apologise for her part in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.

There were unsubstantiated claims she had undergone facial reconstruction surgery and taken a new identity. But ahead of tomorrow's anniversary of the bombing, Stuff tracked her down to a small village in southwest France, where the 66-year-old is a respected local councillor..

Rainbow Warrior crew-members who survived the bombing said this weekend that they were still angry about the terrorist actions of the French government, but accepted that Cabon and her co-conspirators will never face justice. First mate Martini Gotje said he would never shake Cabon's hand. 'I will never forget.'

**READ MORE:

Now aged 66, retired French spy Christine Cabon lives in the southwest France village of Lasseubetat.

* 32 years after Rainbow Warrior, unrepentant spy Cabon is found

* [Top police investigator: I'd like to talk with Christine Cabon

It took mere days before NZ Police realised that the French were implicated in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior at Auckland's Marsden Wharf.

](http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/94412149/top-rainbow-warrior-police-detective-speaks-out-france-paid-price-for-fatal-bombing-with-its-reputation.html)* Jonathan Milne: French spy should be stripped of 'honour' award

* French Prime Minister says bombing a huge mistake

As a 33-year-old, French secret service agent Christine Cabon went undercover in Greenpeace in Auckland, to find information about the Rainbow Warrior that informed the 1985 bombing.

* Rainbow Warrior attack: French bomber says sorry

Greenpeace Director Russel Norman believes history has judged the French government very harshly for the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.

* France v NZ: can't we all just get along?**

Gotje was heartened though, that the anti-nuclear movement was succeeding. Just this week, campaigners worldwide celebrated a new United Nations treaty to ban all nuclear weapons, even though it was boycotted by the nuclear-armed nations.

After her name became public in the police inquiry, Cabon was unable to continue working in the French secret service as an undercover agent. But she was awarded France's Legion d'honneur medal and served out her career in back-office roles. She retired eight years ago to the tiny village of Lasseubetat.

Though cagey when she first spoke, Cabon eventually gave details of her infiltration of Greenpeace, revealing she even helped the Kiwi activists draft a letter to the French Government calling for an end to nuclear tests in the Pacific – all the while being on the French pay-roll.

French secret agent Alain Mafart was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in prison; instead, he served just 17 months on a military base in French Polynesia.

She stood by her subterfuge, saying military officers 'can find themselves in situations they hadn't wished for'. Yet to New Zealanders, she conceded, 'we are the terrorists'.

'Whoever ordered the mission, whatever the reasons, good or bad … what we did, it's called an attack.'

Rainbow Warrior deckhand Bunny McDiarmid, seen here with engineer Hanne Sorensen. 'We will never forget what happened that night 32 years ago,' McDiarmid says. 'But most of all we will never give up.'

Former top cop Allan Galbraith who headed the Rainbow Warrior bombing investigation sheds light on the biggest case of his long and distinguished career.

Sitting down this week for a more detailed interview with a reporter for the French newspaper La République des Pyrénées and the Sunday Star-Times, she acknowledged the bombing was 'a trauma' for New Zealand.

'For the New Zealand government and its population … it is an exceptional historic event. A friendly country attacked them.'

The death of Pereira should have never happened, she said. 'But it's too late to go back in time'.

French divers attached limpet mines to the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour to disrupt Greenpeace protests against French nuclear tests on Mururoa Atoll. Numerous agents took part, but only two, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur, stood trial. Despite receiving seven to 10 year prison sentences they served less than two years on Hao Atoll, a military base in French Polynesia.

Crew member Martini Gotje was aboard the Rainbow Warrior when the bombs went off.

He said the bombing was an attack not just on Greenpeace but on all of New Zealand: 'They come in and act as if they own the world – typical nuclear-weapon state behaviour.'

He said he was 'still pissed off about it'.

Asked if he'd like to see Cabon face justice, Gotje said: 'From my heart I would say yes, but from my head I would say, well, it's not going to happen'.

Cabon's vague statements of regret meant little to him. 'In the meantime Fernando's kids grew up without him, and she was part of the team that murdered him.'

But his anger is mostly focussed on the French government: 'They used people to do the dirty work for them.'

If he were ever to meet Cabon, 'I won't shake her hand, but I also won't biff her on the nose.'

Greenpeace New Zealand head Russel Norman said it was 'sad' Cabon couldn't see her actions were wrong. 'You have one life on this planet and it's pretty short. And is that really how you want to use it: helping to kill a peace activist … blow up ships so that the French Government can fill the Pacific ocean with radioactivity?'

'What the French did was evil.'

He said it was up to the New Zealand government whether it wanted to ask police to reopen the enquiry on Cabon.

Retired Detective Superintendent Allan Galbraith, who tracked Cabon at the time, said he didn't expect to see Cabon extradited to face justice.

But he would like to talk to her: 'I'd be interested to know what she knew about what her information was leading to. Whether she knew there was going to be a sabotage of a ship or whether she knew much less than that.'

Greenpeace International executive director Bunny McDiarmid was a deckhand on the Rainbow Warrior on the night. She said justice was 'never served' for Fernando Pereira's death.

'We will never forget what happened that night 32 years ago. But most of all we will never give up.'

To honour Pereira was to continue his work for the green and peaceful future he believed in, she said.

– additional reporting by staff writers