{"story":["Greenpeace, an international environmental organisation founded in Canada in 1971, was well known for its campaigns to stop nuclear testing and whaling. It had acquired the Rainbow Warrior in 1977, and in the late 1970s and early 1980s the ship supported campaigns against whaling, seal hunting, nuclear testing and the dumping of nuclear waste. From early 1985 it was based in the southern Pacific. After relocating 300 Marshall Islanders from Rongelap Atoll, which had been polluted by fallout from American nuclear tests, it sailed to New Zealand to lead a flotilla of yachts protesting against French nuclear testing at Mururoa (Moruroa) Atoll. New Zealand had consistently protested against nuclear testing in the Pacific since the 1960s, and NZHistory describes it in 1985 as 'basking in its position as leader of the anti-nuclear movement'. According to Te Ara, the French government feared that the ship would draw attention to its testing at Moruroa, and NZHistory records that agents of the French secret service, the DGSE, were sent to prevent it leaving for another protest campaign there.","Just before midnight on 10 July 1985, two explosions ripped through the hull of the Rainbow Warrior, which was moored at Marsden Wharf in Auckland. French secret-service agents had attached two limpet mines to the hull, creating a massive hole that made the vessel useless. The photographer Fernando Pereira, a Portuguese crew member, was killed when the second mine exploded while he was retrieving equipment after the first. Prime Minister David Lange called the sinking 'a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism'. Two DGSE officers, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, were arrested and charged with murder; NZHistory dates the arrests to 24 July, while Wikipedia says they were arrested within 30 hours of the bombing. France at first denied responsibility, and Wikipedia records that the resulting scandal led to the resignation of the French defence minister, Charles Hernu. On 22 September Prime Minister Laurent Fabius admitted that agents of the French secret service had sunk the boat, acting on orders.","Prieur and Mafart pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and on 22 November 1985 each was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. France used its influence to threaten New Zealand's access to the European Economic Community market, and New Zealand exports to France were boycotted; New Zealanders reacted in a similar way to French imports. In Barry Gustafson's Te Ara biography of Lange, the French, unlike the Americans, 'had no qualms about threatening to apply pressure against New Zealand exports'. Eventually both countries agreed to let the United Nations mediate. Gustafson writes that in June 1986 Lange was reluctantly forced to allow the agents' transfer to the French island of Hao. On 8 July 1986, NZHistory records, the United Nations Secretary-General, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, announced in a binding decision that New Zealand would receive an apology and $13 million in compensation from France, which was also ordered not to interfere with New Zealand's trade negotiations, and that the two agents were to serve their sentences in full on Hao Atoll in French Polynesia. Gustafson calls the compensation 'token'. In what NZHistory says was seen as the final insult, both agents were released early. Mafart returned to France because of 'illness' in 1987, and Prieur was repatriated in May 1988 because she was pregnant. Both were decorated and promoted on their return.","In NZHistory's reading, the bombing did much to promote what has been described as New Zealand's 'silent war of independence' and was central to an upsurge in New Zealand nationalism. Traditional allies such as the United States and Britain sat on their hands while France worked to block New Zealand exports, and their failure to condemn the attack hardened support for a more independent foreign policy. Gustafson notes that both were still annoyed over the nuclear ships issue. French people living in New Zealand were sometimes treated with hostility, and Te Ara records that baguettes are said to have been temporarily renamed 'Kiwi sticks'. The Rainbow Warrior was refloated for forensic examination and judged irreparable; Wikipedia records that it was scuttled at Matauri Bay, near the Cavalli Islands, on 12 December 1987, to serve as a dive wreck and fish sanctuary. Between 1988 and 1990 the sculptor Chris Booth created a memorial at Matauri Bay, commissioned by Ngāti Kura and New Zealand China Clays. In 2005, according to Wikipedia, Le Monde published a 1986 report stating that the head of the DGSE at the time, Admiral Pierre Lacoste, had personally obtained approval to sink the ship from Mitterrand. In September 2006 the agent who placed the bomb was named as Gerard Royal by his brother, Antoine."],"sources":[{"title":"Sinking the Rainbow Warrior","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/sinking-rainbow-warrior","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Rainbow Warrior sunk by French secret agents","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/rainbow-warrior-sunk-in-auckland","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Nuclear-free New Zealand","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/nuclear-free-new-zealand","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Rainbow Warrior memorial","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/rainbow-warrior-memorial","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Shipwrecks – The Rainbow Warrior and Mikhail Lermontov","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/shipwrecks/page-6","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"French – People and culture","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/french/page-3","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Lange, David Russell","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/6l1/lange-david-russell","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior","publisher":"Wikipedia"},{"title":"Dominique Prieur","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Prieur","publisher":"Wikipedia"}]}