War on Greenpeace? Spies sink protest ship
JULY 10, 1985
The Rainbow Warrior had a suitably colourful story before its abrupt ending.
Originally known as The Sir William Hardy, it was commissioned by the UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food as a trawler.
It was built in Aberdeen in 1955, but met its untimely demise exactly 30 years later in a bombing.
By that point it had been renamed The Rainbow Warrior, bought by Greenpeace UK for £37,000 in 1977.
After a four-month refit, it was relaunched and used in a number of high-profile campaigns in the North Atlantic.
The Rainbow Warrior was docked at Auckland, New Zealand on July 10, 1985, during a stopover as it made its way to Moruroa in the southern Pacific to protest against a planned French nuclear test.
The ship was open to public viewing and it was during this time French intelligence agents struck.
Three agents on a yacht brought the limpet mines
– a naval mine attached to a target by magnets – to two more agents, who were posing as a newlywed couple and they delivered them to divers Jean Camas and Jean-luc Kister.
Bomb number one went off at 11.38pm, blasting a car-sized hole in the ship’s hull. The crew evacuated,
but quickly returned to investigate the damage.
Fernando Pereira, a Portuguese-dutch freelance photographer, went back on board to collect his camera and it was at that moment the second bomb went off on the propeller shaft. He drowned as The Rainbow Warrior sank four minutes later.
France initially denied involvement and condemned the “terrorist act”. However, a huge police investigation soon uncovered French involvement and the country admitted responsibility. Its defence minister resigned and the head of French intelligence agency DGSE was fired.
Two agents, Captain Dominique Prieur and Commander Alain Mafart, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to 10 years in jail.
They were released within two years.
The Rainbow Warrior was deemed irreparable and scuttled in December 1987.
Amid international pressure, France paid just in excess of $8 million to Greenpeace in damages, which financed another ship. It also paid compensation to Mr Pereira’s family.
France halted nuclear testing in the South Pacific, but carried out more testing in 1995.
In 2015, Jean-luc Kister, who attached the mine to the ship’s hull, spoke publicly about the incident, speaking of his deep remorse.
The third incarnation of The Rainbow Warrior continues to patrol the world’s oceans.