The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, called Opération Satanique, was an act of terrorism by the French government on July 10, 1985. France described the event as a secret mission carried out by the "action" branch of its foreign intelligence agency, the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE). During this mission, two French agents intentionally sank the Rainbow Warrior, the main ship of the Greenpeace organization, while it was docked at the Port of Auckland. The ship was heading to protest a planned French nuclear test in Moruroa. Fernando Pereira, a photographer, died when the ship sank.

The event caused embarrassment for France and its president, François Mitterrand. At first, France denied responsibility, but two French agents were arrested by New Zealand police and charged with arson, conspiracy to commit arson, willful damage, and murder. This led to a public scandal. The French defense minister, Charles Hernu, resigned as a result. The two agents admitted guilt for manslaughter and were sentenced to ten years in a New Zealand prison. However, due to pressure from the French government, they served only two years on the French Polynesian island of Hao before being released.

France was also required to apologize and pay compensation to New Zealand, the family of Fernando Pereira, and Greenpeace.

Background

France started testing nuclear weapons in 1966 at Mururoa Atoll, which is part of the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia. In 1985, countries in the South Pacific, including Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, signed the Treaty of Rarotonga. This treaty made the region a place where nuclear weapons are not allowed.

The Rainbow Warrior was bought by Greenpeace in 1977. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the ship helped with campaigns against whaling, seal hunting, nuclear testing, and dumping nuclear waste. From early 1985, the ship was based in the southern Pacific Ocean. Its crew worked to stop nuclear testing. After helping move 300 Marshall Islanders from Rongelap Atoll, which had been harmed by radioactive waste from earlier American nuclear tests, the ship went to New Zealand. There, it led a group of yachts to protest French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll.

In the past, ships that protested French nuclear tests at Mururoa were stopped by French soldiers after entering the area around the atoll where ships are not allowed. For the 1985 tests, Greenpeace planned to watch the effects of the nuclear tests and send people to the island to observe the explosions.

French spies, pretending to be supporters or tourists, visited the Rainbow Warrior while it was open to the public. One of these spies was DGSE agent Christine Cabon, who had worked on intelligence missions in the Middle East before. She used the name "Frederique Bonlieu" and pretended to be an environmentalist to work at the Greenpeace office in Auckland. While there, Cabon secretly listened to communications from the Rainbow Warrior, collected maps, and studied equipment used underwater.

Opération Satanique

Three agents on the yacht Ouvéa brought in the limpet mines used for the bombing. Two other agents, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, pretended to be a newlywed couple named "Sophie and Alain Turenge." They picked up the mines and gave them to the bombing team, which included divers Jean Camas ("Jacques Camurier") and Jean-Luc Kister ("Alain Tonel").

After enough information was collected, Camas and Kister placed two limpet mines on the Rainbow Warrior, which was anchored at Marsden Wharf. The mines exploded seven minutes apart. The first bomb exploded at 23:38, creating a hole about the size of a typical car.

Although the ship was first evacuated, some crew members returned to check the damage and film it. Fernando Pereira, a Portuguese-Dutch photographer, went below deck to retrieve his camera equipment. At 23:45, the second bomb exploded. Pereira drowned in the fast-moving water that followed. The other ten crew members either left the ship safely as ordered by Captain Peter Willcox or were pushed into the water by the second explosion. The Rainbow Warrior sank four minutes later.

New Zealand reaction and investigation

After the bombing, the New Zealand Police began one of the country's largest police investigations. They found two French agents, Captain Dominique Prieur and Commander Alain Mafart, might be involved. Prieur and Mafart were identified with the help of a Neighbourhood Watch group and arrested. They were questioned and looked into further. Because they had Swiss passports, their real names were found, and the French government was held responsible.

Other members of the French team escaped from New Zealand. Christine Cabon, who had finished her work before the bombing, left for Israel just before the attack. When she was found to be part of the mission, New Zealand police asked Israeli officials to arrest her. However, Cabon learned about this and escaped before being taken into custody.

Three other agents, Chief Petty Officer Roland Verge ("Raymond Velche"), Petty Officer Jean-Michel Bartelo ("Jean-Michel Berthelo"), and Petty Officer Gérard Andries ("Eric Audrenc"), who had brought the bombs to New Zealand on the yacht Ouvéa, escaped on that yacht and were arrested by Australian police on Norfolk Island. New Zealand sent detectives and a forensic scientist to talk to the suspects and gather evidence. They needed time to study the evidence before making arrests. Australian officials gave New Zealand one day to decide. After that, the suspects were released and taken by the French submarine Rubis, which sank the Ouvéa. New Zealand issued arrest warrants for the Ouvéa crew on July 26 for arson and murder, but the crew had already left Australia.

Several agents, including Jean-Luc Kister, one of the bombers, pretended to be tourists. They traveled by ferry to the South Island, skied at Mount Hutt, and left the country with fake documents about ten days later. Another agent, Louis-Pierre Dillais, who might have been in charge, was never caught.

France implicated

France, a friend of New Zealand, first said it was not involved in the bombing and joined New Zealand in calling the attack a terrorist act. The French embassy in Wellington said, "The French Government does not deal with its opponents in such ways."

Later, when it became clear that the bombing was carried out by the government of a friendly country, New Zealand changed its description. It called the act "a criminal attack in breach of the international law of state responsibility, committed on New Zealand sovereign territory." This phrase was used in all messages to the United Nations to prevent the French government from arguing that the attack had any justification.

Prieur and Mafart admitted guilt for manslaughter and were sentenced to ten years in prison on November 22, 1985. France threatened to stop buying New Zealand’s exports from the European Economic Community unless the two men were released. This action could have harmed New Zealand’s economy, which relied heavily on agricultural exports to the United Kingdom.

France created its own investigation led by Bernard Tricot. The report said the French government was not involved and claimed the arrested agents, who had not yet admitted guilt, were only spying on Greenpeace. However, The Times and Le Monde reported that President Mitterrand had approved the bombing. This led to the resignation of Defence Minister Charles Hernu and the removal of Admiral Pierre Lacoste, head of the DGSE.

Operation Satanic caused a major public relations problem. Eventually, Prime Minister Laurent Fabius admitted the bombing was planned by France. On September 22, 1985, he invited reporters to his office to read a 200-word statement. He said, "The truth is cruel," and admitted there had been a cover-up. He added, "Agents of the French secret service sank this boat. They were acting on orders."

Aftermath

Several people, including then New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange, called the bombing an act of terrorism or terrorism supported by a government. Scholars later described the attack as an example of state terrorism.

The next nuclear test, named Héro, took place at Mururoa on 24 October 1985. It produced an explosion equal to two kilotonnes of TNT (8.4 TJ). France carried out 54 more nuclear tests before stopping all nuclear testing in 1996.

A Greenpeace concert called the Rainbow Warrior benefit took place at Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland on 5 April 1986. It featured performances by Herbs, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Topp Twins, Dave Dobbyn, and a reunion of Split Enz.

The Rainbow Warrior was lifted from the water for an investigation. It was determined to be beyond repair and intentionally sunk in Matauri Bay near the Cavalli Islands on 12 December 1987. The ship was later used as a place for divers and fish to live. Its masts were removed and displayed at the Dargaville Maritime Museum. Greenpeace bought a new ship and named it Rainbow Warrior. In 2011, Greenpeace launched another sailing ship with the same name, which has an electric motor. These ships are sometimes called Rainbow Warrior II and Rainbow Warrior III.

In 1987, after international pressure, France paid $8.16 million to Greenpeace for damages. This money helped Greenpeace buy another ship. France also paid compensation to the Pereira family. It reimbursed the family’s life insurance company for 30,000 Dutch guilders and gave 650,000 francs to Pereira’s wife, 1.5 million francs to his two children, and 75,000 francs to each of his parents.

The failure of Western leaders to criticize a violation of a friendly nation’s sovereignty led to major changes in New Zealand’s foreign and defense policies. New Zealand moved away from the United States, a traditional ally, and formed new relationships with small South Pacific nations. It kept strong ties with Australia and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom.

In June 1986, in a political agreement led by United Nations Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, France agreed to pay NZ$13 million (US$6.5 million) to New Zealand and apologize. In return, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur were to be held at a French military base on Hao Atoll for three years. However, both agents returned to France by May 1988, less than two years after being sent to the atoll. Mafart returned to Paris in December 1987 for medical care and was released afterward. He continued working in the French Army and became a colonel in 1993. Prieur returned to France in May 1988 because she was pregnant, and her husband was allowed to join her. She was also released and later promoted. The removal of the agents from Hao without their return was considered a violation of the 1986 agreement.

After the agreement was broken, in 1990 the UN secretary-general gave New Zealand another NZ$3.5 million (US$2 million) to create the New Zealand/France Friendship Fund. France had officially apologized to New Zealand in 1986, but in 1991, French Prime Minister Michel Rocard gave a personal apology. He said it was to "turn the page in the relationship" and to express that "if we had known each other better, this thing never would have happened." The Friendship Fund has supported many charitable and public projects. In 2016, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls repeated that the incident was "a serious error."

In 2005, a French newspaper, Le Monde, published a 1986 report stating that Admiral Pierre Lacoste, head of DGSE at the time, had "personally obtained approval to sink the ship from the late president François Mitterrand." Soon after, Admiral Lacoste spoke publicly about the situation. He admitted the death weighed on his conscience and said the goal of the operation was not to kill. He acknowledged the existence of three groups: the yacht crew, reconnaissance and logistics (those who were later prosecuted), and a two-person team that carried out the bombing.

A 20th anniversary edition of the 1986 book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior, written by New Zealand author David Robie (who was on the bombed ship), was published in July 2005.

Twenty years after the bombing, Television New Zealand (TVNZ) requested access to a video recording from a court hearing where the two French agents pleaded guilty. The footage had been kept private since the end of the trial. The agents opposed its release and took the case to the New Zealand Court of Appeal and later the Supreme Court of New Zealand. On 7 August 2006, the Supreme Court rejected the agents’ appeal, and TVNZ broadcast their guilty pleas the same day.

In 2005, Louis-Pierre Dillais admitted his involvement with the bombing in an interview with TVNZ.

In 2006, Antoine Royal said his brother, Gérard Royal, had claimed to be involved in planting the bomb. Their sister, Ség

Rainbow Warriormemorial

A memorial to honor the Rainbow Warrior was built between 1988 and 1990 by New Zealand sculptor Chris Booth. The memorial was placed in Matauri Bay in Northland, New Zealand. It was asked to be created by Ngati Kura and New Zealand China Clays.

In popular culture

The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and the later investigation were the topic of several films, including The Rainbow Warrior Conspiracy (1988), The Rainbow Warrior (1993), and Departure and Return: The Final Journey of the Rainbow Warrior (2006) by Claudia Pond-Eyley.

Murder in the Pacific, a three-part documentary about the sinking directed by Chloe Campbell, was shown on BBC2 in March 2023.

The 1985 song "Hercules" by the Australian band Midnight Oil is about the sinking. In 1990, New Zealand singer/songwriter Martin Curtis made and released "The End of the Rainbow" on the album The Daisy Patch. The 1989 song "Little Fighter" by the Danish/American band White Lion is also about the sinking. The event is mentioned in the 2004 song "Walkampf" by the German punk band Die Toten Hosen. In 2005, a group of New Zealand musicians and artists recorded a cover of "Anchor Me" by the New Zealand rock band The Mutton Birds to remember the 20th anniversary of the bombing. The song reached number 3 on the New Zealand singles chart.