TELEVISION NEW ZEALAND ‘SUNDAY’ PROGRAMME


INTERNATIONAL VERSION
DURATION – 41’00
REPORTER – JOHN HUDSON
PRODUCERS – CHRIS COOKE, MAX ADAMS


THIS YEAR MARKS THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BOMBING OF THE RAINBOW WARRIOR.


OPERATION SATANIC

25 YEARS AGO … A DEFINING MOMENT IN FRENCH AND NEW ZEALAND HISTORY.

AN ACT OF STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM AGAINST AN UNARMED PROTEST GROUP... AND A QUARTER OF A CENTURY LATER, IT'S STILL NOT FULLY UNDERSTOOD.

AT TEN MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT ON JULY THE TENTH 1985, THE FIRST BOMB EXPLODED. WITHIN SECONDS THE GREENPEACE PROTEST SHIP, THE RAINBOW WARRIOR WAS RESTING ON THE SEABED.

TWO MINUTES LATER A SECOND BOMB EXPLODED AND PHOTOGRAPHER FERNANDO PEREIRA WAS DROWNED.

WE KNOW ABOUT THE TWO FRENCH SPIES - ALAIN MAFART AND DOMINIQUE PRIEUR - WHO WERE CAUGHT AND PLEADED GUILTY.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE OTHERS? THE FRENCH AGENTS WHO DID THE BOMBING. WHO WERE THEY? HOW MANY WERE SENT HERE ? WHO WAS REALLY RESPONSIBLE AND WHAT ARE THEY DOING NOW ?
WE'VE TRACKED DOWN THE MAN WHO LED THE TEAM WHICH SANK THE GREENPEACE FLAGSHIP. WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED ABOUT HIM WILL AMAZE YOU.

WE'VE ALSO INTERVIEWED ONE OF THE AGENTS WHO SMUGGLED THE EXPLOSIVES INTO NEW ZEALAND. HE REVEALS NEW INFORMATION ABOUT THE SABOTAGE PLAN.

AND LAURENT FABIUS, THE FRENCH PRIME MINISTER IN 1985 SPEAKS FOR THE FIRST TIME TO THE NZ MEDIA ABOUT THE INCIDENT.

A SPECIAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE BOMBING OF THE RAINBOW WARRIOR.







T/code Pics Synch

01.00.00 i/v Marelle Pereira
My Dad has been murdered. I don't see it as manslaughter. I don't see it as accidental killing.
01.00.11 v/o
Twenty five years ago Marelle Pereira lost her father Fernando. Killed by a bomb on the Rainbow Warrior, she was just 8 years old

01.00.22 i/v Marelle Pereira
A lot comes out of a 3 and half year old kid

v/o
Today she is a pre school teacher in Amsterdam.

i/v Marelle Pereira
There’s never goes by a day without thinking oh yeah dad. It’s always in your memories, so that's with you all the time. Sometimes you think oh why?

01.00.47 v/o
Waitemata harbour, July 7th 1985. The Rainbow Warrior is welcomed by a flotilla of small boats. It’s the time of French nuclear testing in the Pacific and some of these yatchies plan to accompany the Greenpeace mother ship to Mururoa Atoll to protest.

Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira had waved goodbye to his family in Amsterdam a month earlier.

01.01.17 i/v Marelle Pereira
I remember me saying then, I don't know why but Daddy don't go because if you leave you're not coming back and of course he telling to a child no dear I'm coming home.

i/v Steve Sawyer, Greenpeace
I think the idea was to hit Greenpeace hard hopefully in their minds hard enough so that we wouldn't come back.

01.01.41 v/o
Steve Sawyer worldwide director of Greenpeace. He lost a ship and a friend, Fernando.

i/v Steve Sawyer, Greenpeace
They make a great show about how it was not designed to cause any loss of life which is total rubbish. We're very lucky that a lot more people weren't killed.

Reporter John Hudson to Camera
Twenty five years ago New Zealanders lost a sense of innocence. There had never been a terrorist attack like this before. At first we asked who would want to sink the flagship of an environmental group. Why risk killing someone like Fernando Pereira?

01.02.15 i/v Marelle Pereira
It meant a lot to him to be involved it was not just for making photos.

He believed in what Greenpeace was doing?

He believed in the cause yeah you can sum it up to one sentence.

01.02.30 v/o
The last pictures taken of Fernando Pereira. He loved reading the letters from his eight year old daughter.

Did you father write to you?

Yeah yeah. Especially some postcards with pictures of the Rainbow Warrior on it.
Letters to my mum and I've got a postcard still explaining where he was.

01.02.54 v/o
In the evening of July 10th the Rainbow Warrior crew and well wishers held a party on board for Steve Sawyer.
i/v Steve Sawyer
The cook had made me a birthday cake and we did all that thing and there were a bunch of local activists on board.

01.03.10 v/o
But while they ate and drank just a few metres below French divers using special rebreather tanks which don't show bubbles on the surface, were placing two bombs. One near the engine room, another at the stern beside the propeller. Timers were set to detonate the explosives just before midnight. After the party the skippers from the boats going to protest at Mururoa held a meeting.

01.03.36 i/v Steve Sawyer
Key people from the other ships that were going, the small boats that were going to join us at Mururoa and that broke up around eleven thirty.


v/o
Just twenty minutes before the first explosion.
Fx explosion i/v Steve Sawyer (archive)
There was a small explosion the first time and about a minute later there was a great big explosion which shook the whole building of the sailors home which is 6 stories high.

01.04.03 v/o
Fernando Pereira may have been knocked unconscious by the second bomb. He had gone below to search for a woman who had in fact already left the vessel. He also wanted his camera.

i/v Steve Sawyer
The skipper of the Vega looked at me and said they've blown up the boat and they've killed Fernando.

01.04.19 In the early hours of July 11th Navy divers confirmed what the Greenpeace crew suspected. . this was not an accident.

i/v Rob Schmidt, Former New Zealand Navy diver.
We went through the forward hatch into the engine room area.

01.04.34 v/o
Former Navy diver Rob Schmidt.

i/v Rob Schmidt
That’s when I came across the hull side of the ship and noticed all the metal had been penetrated in.

So what did that tell you?

To me that that must have been something on the outside, a device on the outside, that had forced that metal in so possibly a bomb

v/o
But his first job, to find Fernando Pereira.

i/v Rob Schmidt
I come across him he was sort of face down. When I looked him over he had a whole lot of camera gear wrapped around his feet, cables and stuff like that.

He had clearly drowned not been blown to pieces?

Oh yeah he had clearly drowned because he was all in one piece, his bones weren't shattered or like that.

01.05.21 v/o
Marelle Pereira was taken out of a school camp and told what had happened.

i/v Marelle Pereira
I understood what death meant, that he was actually not coming back.
It was just sadness. unbelievable sadness. Crying days days days.

How do you enter another country and on their soil bomb a boat that's not even French property. Let alone the country that they're in.
01.05.57 v/o
By dawn news that a bomb had sunk the Rainbow Warrior reached the Beehive in Wellington.

i/v Sir Geoffrey Palmer, Former Deputy Prime Minister, New Zealand
It was an unbelievable act and it was of course one of the dumbest things the French Government has ever done.

01:06:12 v/o
For Geoffrey Palmer then deputy Prime Minister it was the beginning of a ten year battle with the French that would cost both countries dearly.

i/v Sir Geoffrey Palmer
This was the most serious violation of New Zealand's territorial sovereignty that it has ever suffered. It was an act of state sponsored terrorism, it was an act of war.

01:06:37 v/o
Six weeks after the bombing the Navy re-floated Rainbow Warrior and towed her to dry dock. She was unsalvageable. A hole in the engine room large enough to drive a small car through.

Her rudder was snapped and the drive shaft smashed into the motor.

The interior had been ripped apart by shrapnel blasting through the decks.

A clock stopped short, never to go again.
i/v Steve Sawyer
If all they were seeking to do was to prevent us from getting there then there would be many many ways much less spectacular for them to achieve those objectives.

Reporter John Hudson to camera.
So just what were the French thinking why such an extreme attack. Two bombs that not only sank the Rainbow Warrior but also made her unsalvageable. Well the answer lies in the politics of the bomb and the unsettled mind of the French Minister of Defence.


i/v Jean Guisnel, French Journalist.
Charles Hernu was the happiest man in the world when he became Minister of Defence. He was very happy. He was very close to Francois Mitterrand.

01:07:46 v/o
Jean Guisnel is a veteran journalist and author. He was among the small clique of Paris journalists who exposed the French Government's direct involvement in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior. In 1985 he says the French Defence Minister Charles Hernu was in a bad way after a messy divorce.

i/v Jean Guisnel
He still was a womaniser and an alcoholic so he didn’t have a control on his mind and he really wanted something big on, against Greenpeace.

01:08:21




Fx “La Marseillaise” v/o
Charles Hernu might have had a problem with alcohol but he was also passionate about the military. He loved all the high tech gear and even had his own collection of uniforms. What’s more he had friends in high places.

President Mitterrand had come to power promising to strengthen French military independence and his buddy Charles Hernu was his choice to make sure it happened..

i/v Jean Guisnel
New weapons, new planes, new submarines new missiles and new tests.

01:08:59 v/o
France was about to detonate the world's most advanced neutron bomb. Charles Hernu wanted something done to stop Greenpeace disrupting the tests.

Hernu turned to Admiral LaCoste head of the DGSE the French external secret service to come up with a plan. In 1997 the Admiral talked about it.

i/v Admiral LaCoste
I wanted to make sure even before we started preparing the attack that President Mitterrand was informed of Charles Hernu's intension and I told Charles Hernu this.

I knew it was a clandestine mission its normal you just go ahead you don't ask for details.

Reporter John Hudson
What do you think was going through Charles Hernu's mind when he decided to blow up the Rainbow Warrior?

i/v Jena Guisnel
First he didn’t want Greenpeace to enter the Mururoa Lagoon. Secondly he wanted something big. Something you can see, something you can understand easy, you know.

And do you think he would have confided in president Mitterrand about his plan?

In the details I don’t think so, in general, yes.

Could be something we want your authorisation to stop the Rainbow Warrior. That’s all. Not more.

Would it have been verbal?

Yeah.

01:10:24 v/o
We've heard who ordered the bombing but what did the secret agents who carried it out think of the plan?

The French military knew Rainbow Warrior was trouble long before she tied up in Auckland..

i/v Steve Sawyer
The prime objective really was occupy the French to annoy the French for as long as possible until they made a stupid mistake.
01:10:52 They made a mistake alright but it wasn't what Greenpeace was expecting.

i/v Jean Guisnel
They worked on three scenarios.

01:11:00 Journalist Jean Guisnel has talked to all the agents involved in the bombing. He says the first option was to contaminate Rainbow Warrior's fuel. The second to use only a small bomb to disable the vessel.

i/v Jean Guisnel
Third option, the one which occurred. So two bombs, the first one to be sure that nobody stays onboard and the second one to sink the boat.

01:11:27 v/o
And he says approval for this third option came from the highest political level.

i/v Jean Guisnel
Charles Hernu with General Saulnier who was the Chief of Staff of Mitterrand who said ok.

01:11:42 v/o
Charles Hernu was the Defence Minister. General Saulnier was President Mitterrand’s chief of staff.. Saulnier signed off the budget suggesting the president at least had a general idea of the plan.


Reporter John Hudson
Was that a popular decision amongst the DGSE officers?

i/v Jean Guisnel
No.

Their preferred option was the option one.

To poison... the diesel?

To poison the... the diesel, yes.

01:12:12 Fx buzzer v/o
The attack was codenamed Operation Satanic but the choice to bomb the rainbow warrior put pressure on the DGSE action teams. Commander Alain Mafart speaking for the first time on New Zealand television.

i/v Alain Mafart
Initially we were requested to prevent the Rainbow Warrior going to Mururoa so all well and good not much of a problem because we had a plan in place. To contaminate the fuel with bacteria. So everything was fine until things took a dramatic twist and we were instead requested to sink the Rainbow Warrior.

Reporter John Hudson
how many people do you think were involved altogether in the actual execution of the bombing?

i/v Jean Guisnel
Dozens.

So there are people that we may not have ever heard about?

Yeah.

And will never hear about?

Yeah.

Were present in New Zealand?

Some of them.

01:13:02 v/o
At first the DGSE wanted to use a nuclear sub to land their spies in New Zealand, but the French navy refused saying that idea was madness. Instead a plan spearheaded by three teams of agents was approved.

The first action team sailed to New Zealand from New Caledonia on the (yacht) Ouvea carrying the explosives and diving gear.


i/v Dr Xavier Maniguet, Dive medicine specialist.
As you know I was on the Ouvea.

01:13:32 v/o
Doctor Xavier Maniguet was not a fulltime DGSE officer but a Colonel in the French Navy reserve.

i/v Dr Xavier Maniguet
I am old now but it’s still okay with the navy. It's no problem.

01:13:51 Fx upsot Sunday found Doctor Maniguet in the exclusive ski resort at Miribel in the French Alps. Here he trains other mountain pilots. Its dangerous stuff but then Doctor Maniguet has often courted danger.

i/v Dr Xavier Maniguet
I have a family military tradition the DGSE was interested in people like me.

01:14:14 v/o
Dr Maniguet is a specialist in diving medicine, that's why he was chosen for Operation Satanic. He's also an author. His book on sharks is a best seller and now the agent who slept with at least four women during his brief stay in New Zealand now has another best seller about the secrets of remaining young.

Back in 1985 Doctor Maniguet and three DGSE agents sailed the Ouvea into the Parengarenga Harbour in New Zealand’s Far North, but they were nearly wrecked when Ouvea hit the sandbar.

i/v Dr Xavier Maniguet
After the bang the boat was still going down it was very impressive.

We thought the boat would explode you know.

01:15:07 v/o
Police forensic tests would later show plastic high explosives had been on board the Ouvea ,but even today Dr Maniguet is evasive.

i/v Dr Xavier Maniguet
Where were the plastic explosive hidden?

You are very direct in your question.

A lot of places to put a bomb.

But in this case where was it?

I dunno

But they could have found something if they..?

Oh surely yes surely.

01:15:44 v/o
Xavier Maniguet playing the role of a wealthy retired adventurer was the only person on the Ouvea traveling on an authentic passport. The others Chief Petty Officer Roland Verge, Petty officer Gerald Andries..
and Petty Officer Jean Michel Bartello had false passports . All of them DGSE combat frogmen but according to Maniguet no one in the team knew what the overall plan involved.

i/v Dr Xavier Maniguet
I was in Whangarei that I for the first time that I heard from the custom responsible that the Rainbow Warrior was in Auckland.

So you didn't really know the target?

No

You could guess.

After that I was sure.

01:16:39 v/o
In Whangarei they contacted Commander Alain Mafart and Captain Dominique Prieur posing as a Swiss honeymoon couple called Turenge. Their job, to deliver the explosives and other equipment to Auckland.

But they were unlucky. The two spy teams were now seen together.

A car driven by one of the Ouvea crew was spotted in the Te Puni Forest. Suspicious tree pruners wrote down the registration number.

Later near Kaiwaka another witness saw a Zodiac and outboard motors from the Ouvea car being transferred to the Turenge's rental campervan.

i/v Dr Xavier Maniguet
If we had known the culture of New Zealand people perhaps we would have been more discreet.

01:17:30 v/o
Indiscretion by day was followed by confusion after the bombs were planted.

i/v Maurice Whitham, Former Police Inspector
When the occupant of the zodiac came ashore near Okahu Bay he appeared to be disoriented.

01:17:46 v/o
Inspector Maurice Whitham second in command of the police investigation.

He did a couple of circles disturbed the fishermen then went under the bridge and then dropped the motor into the sea. Also the campervan made a couple of visits up and down Tamaki Drive.

01:18:03 v/o
This attracted yet more attention as Mafart and Prieur tried to find the Zodiac.

Boat club security volunteers saw the van, noted its registration, rang the police. Several hours before the explosions.

i/v Dominique Prieur, Former DGSE agent.
They took our van's registration number.

01:18:23 Fx French language iv Dominique Prieur speaking about the confusion on the night of the bombing.

i/v Dominique Prieur
It was as simple and stupid as that.

01:18:32 v/o
She says they may have been tracked down sooner had their travel company's computer not broken down.
i/v Dominique Prieur
Yeah it was lucky because we would have been caught earlier..

01:18:43 v/o
And then another close call for Mafart and Prieur. While dumping the dive tanks, their van became stuck in the mud only to be pushed out by helpful Maori.

i/v Dominique Prieur
They could have reported our meeting to the police but they didn't.

Reporter John Hudson to camera
Mafart and Prieur could perhaps put the sightings and confusion down to bad luck but now they broke one of the golden rules of espionage.

They knew the police would be looking for the campervan. and the next day they knew that Fernando Pereira was dead so they decided to abandon their fake honeymoon and leave the country. But instead of simply dumping the campervan they returned it, a move they would live to regret.

01:19:30 v/o
Alain Mafart should have known better, he was a commander at the military dive school in Corsica. According to Xavier Maniguet he had dismissed a recruit for doing in selection exercises what he did in New Zealand.

i/v Dr Xavier Maniguet
This guy was sacked by Mafart. Why, because the exercise he was giving back the car.

So he broke his own rule?

Yes exactly so why? Why to give back the car no I don't understand that everybody can do mistake but this one is big.

01:20:11 Fx policeman v/o
The police were looking for the campervan and when the spies returned it they pounced.

i/v Maurice Whitham
There were conflicting stories as to where they had been why they were here and who they were.

01:20:24 v/o
Then the breakthrough. The police learned the Swiss passports were false.
The real Turenge's had been Swiss.. but they were dead and now the rest of the agents’ story began to unravel.
Fx French languguage iv i/v Alain Mafart
This operation failed because of pure back luck. An operation is a piece of knitting..when one thread starts to unravel the whole thing falls to pieces.
01:20:51 v/o
Then another mistake

i/v Maurice Whitham
There were a number of phone calls made to a so-called Uncle Emile..

01:20:58 v/o
Mafart and Prieur claimed they were calling an ill Uncle Emile in Paris but New Zealand Police established calls to Uncle Emile were answered by the DGSE.

i/v Dominique Prieur
When the New Zealand police said this was a DGSE number I was dumbfounded. I had believed the number to be very secure.

i/v Dr Xavier Maniquet
I never understood why Mafart called specific numbers in France because he knew that everybody had big ears in New Zealand.

Do you consider yourself fortunate that you weren't caught?

No because personally I did not do mistakes.

v/o
And by the time the bombs went off Dr Maniguet and the first action team were motoring into a storm bound for Norfolk Island.

How did you and you colleagues feel when you learned that a man had been killed by this bomb?

i/v Dr Xavier Maniquet
I'm very sorry about that of course as everybody but when I left France I did not know that I would be involved in an operation who would kill anyone but you know I have it's not really an excuse. When you are military you obey your orders and if orders are not good, you obey.



01:22:41 v/o
We know Mafart and Prieur made mistakes in an operation they didn't want to carry out in the first place.

And within days of the bombing police knew they were linked to the Ouvea crew.

Now the hunt began for the others responsible.

i/v Maurice Whitham
We just did a customs alert for the Pacific and the Australian customs pulled up and said, ‘guess what we've just got a boat for you’.

01:23:08 v/o
In Norfolk Island Australian authorities would impose only a 24 hour detention on the Ouvea crew. Now New Zealand detectives scrambled to get there.

i/v Maurice Whitham
At about ten o’clock at night they banged on the door of the motel where they were staying in Norfolk Island and they started doing an interview at 10 oclock at night.

01:23:27 v/o
They dusted for fingerprints, seized documents, swabbed the Ouvea for traces of explosives. They gathered enough evidence to charge the crew but they had no way of analysing it before their 24 hours expired.

i/v Maurice Whitham
I know that our staff at Norfolk Island were pretty disappointed to see the Ouvea sail into the sunset.

01:23:48 v/o
The New Zealand Government sent an airforce Orion to search for the Ouvea, but it was too late.

There was one last radio transmission heard from the yacht back to Paris. Then nothing. The boat simply vanished.

Reporter John Hudson to camera.
Action team one had escaped. Action team two, Mafart and Prieur, were in prison and they were facing murder charges. But a third action team, the men who actually planted the bombs were still in New Zealand. So too was the leader of Operation Satanic Lieutenant Colonel Lois Dillias..

01:24:23 v/o
The two divers who planted the bombs arrived in New Zealand calling themselves Alain Tonel and Jacques Camurier. They were photographed tramping in the South Island..

Their leader Lt Colonel Lois Dillais, to his annoyance, was snapped rafting on the Shotover River. He'd called himself Demond.

i/v Maurice Whitham
We know that Demond came in on the weekend before the bombing. He stayed in the Hyatt Hotel in Auckland City.

01:24:54 v/o
From his room above Marsden Wharf he guided Operation Satanic.

i/v Maurice Whitham
Do you know what's happened to Dillais what's become of him?

No, we have had no trace of him.

01:25:05 v/o
Twenty five years on Sunday found Colonel Lois Dillais working in Washington D.C. What he does for a living may surprise you.

We tracked him to this building where he heads the American subsidiary of a major international arms company FM Herstal.

Reporter John Hudson to camera.
The former Rainbow Warrior bomber recently secured a major US military contract.. That contract to supply small arms to the US special forces. Ironically they’re the people spearheading America's war on terror.

v/o
This is Herstal’s promotion for its new lightweight submachine gun. Just the weapon they say the America needs to deal with terrorists..

However the American special forces had no comment to make when we pointed out the man selling them guns is one of the Rainbow Warrior bombers..

Ironically, the New Zealand armed forces also buy small arms from Herstal.




01:26:11 i/v Lois Dillais, Former Lt Colonel and DGSE agent.
Mr Dillais, John Hudson from Television New Zealand.

The former Colonel wasn't pleased to see me.

I don't want to talk to you.

Ah we've come all this way.
We've come all this way we're doing a programme about you.

I don’t not want to talk to you.
I'm sorry and I am going to talk to my attorney.
01:26:28 v/o
But for the next 15 minutes Lois Dillais did talk to me..

i/v Lois Dillais
You trapped me

Oh well you blew up the Rainbow Warrior we trapped you..

01: 26:39 v/o
Lois Dillais told me twenty five years on the authorities in France still won't let him talk about Operation Satanic.

i/v Lois Dillais
I won't talk because I would expose myself to problems in France and I have already alerted the French authority about that..

I am one of the miniscule parts of the French I was..

yep

You were a soldier..

I was a soldier...that's it.

You must regret being involved in that though surely?

Absolutely. I don't say I regret. I did my job the best I could. I am sorry for the loss of life for my Government. It’s not my direct involvement.

We understand from talking to people in France that the DGSE didn't really want to blow up the Rainbow Warrior that you would have preferred other options but Charles Hernu wanted to blow it up.

Absolutely.

01:27:45 v/o
Colonel Dillais told me he'd signed a confidentiality agreement when he discharged from the French military.

i/v Lois Dillais
What I can tell you is nobody wanted this to go that far.

It was never intended to kill anyone and this was I would say an unfortunate accident I am sorry for the family but you know what can you do what can you do.

01:28:15 v/o
And Louis Dillais confirmed he did not accompany the divers on the Auckland Harbour when they planted the bombs.

i/v Lois Dillais
I was not the pilot of the Zodiac ok.

01:28:26 So who was the Zodiac pilot? Well he knew who to ask..

i/v Lois Dillais
I have always been a straight shooter. You can talk to Jean - Jean is a personal friend.

01:28:36 v/o
Louis Dillais personal friend, journalist Jean Guisnel also helped his other friend Alain Mafart write his book and he confirmed there were three agents on the water.

The men who called themselves Tonel and Camurier planted the bombs while a third man drove the zodiac.

i/v Jean Guisnel, Journalist
I know his name and I know the guy I had lunch with him not long ago..

So you know this man personally?

Yeah.

Who has never been identified?

No No.

v/o
The man he is talking about is known to the New Zealand police only as Peter the sailor. He was the man picked up by Mafart and Prieur at Okahu Bay Guisnel told us his first name is Jean-Luke.

i/v Jean Guisnel
He feels he was never identified by New Zealand police or any other authorities involved?

No he wasn't. No he was not.

01:29:27 v/o
By the end of July 1985 the heat was going on the French Government..

I was in Paris covering L'affaire Greenpeace when the French press began naming agents who'd been involved including the woman who called herself Sophie Turenge.

Reporter John Hudson to Camera
L'Express says her friends recognised a photograph of her in a magazine after she was arrested in Auckland. It renames her as Dominique Prieur.

01:29:55 v/o
New Zealand detectives sent to Paris to investigate the bombing managed to interview Doctor Maniguet but were effectively stonewalled by the bemused French police force.

Fx French language i/v Charles Hernu, Defence Minister.
No one in my ministry received an order to commit the attack against the Rainbow Warrior.

01:30:23 v/o
Charles Hernus' denial was emphatic.. the French military had nothing to do with the bombing.

i/v Charles Hernu
If anyone has disobeyed me if anyone has lied to me I will immediately make it known and demand the Government takes action.

01:30:42 v/o
However the newspaper Le Monde was reporting leaks, leaks straight from Pierre Joxe, the Minister in charge of France's internal security service.

i/v Dr Xavier Maniguet
He's the only man to have given the names identity of agent...I got Interpol in my house in my flats everywhere Normandy in Paris because of Joxe.

01:31:11 v/o
So Charles Hernu was eventually dobbed in by one of his own cabinet colleagues. Pierre Joxe the man who later became Defence Minister..

But first a very worried French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius held an inquiry..


01:31:28 Fx French language
Bernard Tricot President De Gaulle's former chief of staff was asked to hold the inquiry into allegations the French military was involved.

i/v Dr Xavier Maniguet
Yes, it was a masquerade..

I was interviewed by him and I was very surprised because he had no information. Nobody gave him information.

01:31:47 v/o
Tricot's report in August was an unbelievable whitewash claiming the trained saboteurs in New Zealand were simply observing Greenpeace.

It said Louis Dillais had not gone to New Zealand and the Ouvea crew had not met Mafart and Prieur there. There was no mention of the men who called themselves Tonel and Camurier who planted the bombs.

Charles Hernu and the head of the DGSE Admiral LaCoste were cleared of any involvement.

i/v Dr Xavier Maniguet
Yes it was a big lie.

He was really thinking about superior interest of the state and he preferred to look naïve instead.

i/v David McTaggart, Greenpeace chairman
The Tricot reports speaks for itself. It is pathetic.

01:32:35 Greenpeace chairman David McTaggart was disgusted with the French attitude.

i/v David McTaggart
A non violent crew member was murdered with at least five trained underwater French commandos close by and Tricot says they were taking pictures.

01:32:54 v/o
The physical evidence gathered by the New Zealand police made a mockery of the repeated French denials.

DGSE boss Admiral LaCoste had had enough..

i/v Admiral LaCoste
On many occasions I insisted that Charles Hernu tell President Mitterrand but he always refused. That is when I got caught in a web of lies for several weeks.

01:33:17 v/o
The French people couldn't stomach the lies and the cover-up either.

In September Le Monde reported Charles Hernu had authorised the bombing.

Reporter John Hudson to Camera
Not only had the sabotage of the Rainbow Warrior been botched but now the French Secret Service and government had been caught lying publicly in an attempted cover up. Prime Minister Laurent Fabius recommended to President Mitterrand that heads should roll.

01:33:44 v/o
Admiral La Coste was sacked.. he'd refused to name the agents involved.

The next day Charles Hernu was also fired.

It was left to French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius to acknowledge French saboteurs had sunk the Rainbow Warrior. He admitted they had been following orders and there had been a cover-up.

i/v Laurent Fabius, former French Prime Minister
It was a mess from the beginning to the end and France has to apologise for that and France did.

I remember you apologizing

Yes, yes

01:34:20 v/o
Twenty five years on the former French Prime Minister says he was betrayed.

i/v Laurent Fabius
People had lied to me. It is only the end of the process when the Minister of Defence, Mr Hernu has been fired that everything became clear.

How could it be that the Prime Minister of France was left out of the consultative process?

Well its one of the mysteries of that absurd case..

01:34:47 v/o
Laurent Fabius says Hernu not only authorised the attack but he lied about his involvement even to his closest colleagues.

i/v Laurent Fabius.
And I remember and I think you were there an episode when we were at the Elysee Palace the minister President Mitterrand and myself and he asked to the Minister can you say to the Prime Minister if we are in this business or not and the Minister says no.

And its only after a few weeks when some of them were sacked that the true things appear and I came to the TV and said French people have done it and therefore we have to confess it.

You must have felt a sense of betrayal then?

Yes. Yes yes.

01:35:47 Fx cars v/o
Four months after the bombing the world's media gathered in Auckland for the trial of Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart. Those expecting a long murder hearing would be disappointed.

i/v David McTaggart, Greenpeace chairman
Mr Mitterrand said he would call for justice at the highest level I think this was justice at some extent at a very low level

01:36:12 v/o
The New Zealand Solicitor General Paul Neazor decided the murder charges couldn't be sustained. Instead the French agents pleaded guilty to manslaughter and arson.

Prieur and Mafart were sentenced to 10 years in prison.

i/v Geoffrey Palmer, Former New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister.
The prisoners were in our possession and French public opinion became extraordinarily agitated about this..
And of course the French started trade embargoes on New Zealand...they went on and on until we came to the point where it became clear to me that we could not win a trade war with France.

01:36:54 In 1986 New Zealand and France struck a deal. New Zealand got $13 million compensation. Marfart and Prieur would be sent to a French atoll to serve out their sentence.

i/v Geoffrey Palmer
We had long arguments if I remember about which atoll might be most suitable. People were going out and getting maps and we were looking at Maot and Reunion and Hoa and what the difference was and whether we could get there and whether we could inspect. That part of it was extremely difficult.

01:37:26 v/o
Less than a year after the bombing in the dead of the night, the agents were flown to Hao Atoll. The head of security at their new prison none other than Dominique's husband, Joel Prieur.

But before you could say non je ne regrette rien, Marfart and later Prieur were back in Paris. Allegedly too ill to remain at Hao. The French military were delighted but now New Zealand got another lot of compensation.

i/v Geoffrey Palmer
They were not able to escape the humiliation of having to admit they had done this horrendous act. They were not able to escape from having to pay reparation at international law for it and they were not able to escape the consequences of having breached the agreement that they had made to settle it.

But they were able to continue testing at Mururoa atoll ten years later?

Yes they were and of course New Zealand objected to that too.

01:38:26 v/o
Fifteen years ago Marelle Pereira came to New Zealand with a documentary team to investigate her father’s death and to seek some answers from the former Prime Minister David Lange.
i/v Marelle Pereira talking to David Lange
Why didn't they serve the sentence in New Zealand?

Well that is the King hit you came all this way to hit me. You came all this way to king hit me. France put all sorts of pressure on. They are very single minded

What do you mean by that. The French blackmailed you?

Yes, yes

I received a telephone from Mr Rocard who was then the Prime Minister of France
and he said, I am very sorry I cannot send them back. I said why not? He said the military won't let me. Then he said I am only the Prime Minister and I saying to him I understand I am only the Prime Minister.

01:39:20 Fx ship horn


Fx ship horn v/o
In 1987 the Rainbow Warrior was laid to rest off Matauri Bay in Northland.

Greenpeace purchased another larger vessel with the compensation they received from the French Government and in 1995 French commandos boarded the second Rainbow Warrior while it was protesting further nuclear tests at Mururoa.

The next year the French finally stopped nuclear testing.

Today the rusting hull of the Rainbow Warrior is a marine sanctuary. A reminder of a time now past. The age of nuclear testing in the South Pacific.

Charles Hernu, the architect of the bombing, was more popular than ever in France after he was sacked. He was awarded the legion of honour and he died of a heart attack five years after the bombing.

Marelle Pereira still lives in Amsterdam not far from her mother’s home.

i/v Marelle Pereira
We cry together and that's good because that’s how you can not get over it but I accept it a little better. Every day until we die, not forgiving, not forgetting but having to accept the fact.



END….. ///