The author of the book Eyes of Fire, one of the many publications on the Rainbow Warrior bombing almost 40 years ago but the only one by somebody actually on board the bombed ship, says he was under no illusions that France was behind the attack.
Journalist David Robie was speaking last month at a Greenpeace Aotearoa workshop at Mātauri Bay for environmental staff and activists and revealed that he has a forthcoming new book to mark the anniversary of the bombing.
“I don’t think I had any illusions at the time. For me, I knew it was the French immediately the bombing happened,” he said.
- READ MORE: David Robie on Eyes of Fire — Greenpeace video
- Eyes of Fire: Thirty Years On educational microsite
- The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior — Greenpeace
- From Rongelap to Mejatto – how Rainbow Warrior helped move nuclear refugees — David Robie
“You know with the horrible things they were doing at the time with their colonial policies in Kanaky New Caledonia, assassinating independence leaders and so on, and they had a heavy military presence.
“A sort of clamp down in New Caledonia, so it just fitted in with the pattern — an absolute disregard for the Pacific.”
He said it was ironic that four decades on, France had trashed the goodwill that had been evolving with the 1988 Matignon and 1998 Nouméa accords towards independence with harsh new policies that led to the riots in May last year.
Dr Robie’s series of books on the Rainbow Warrior focus on the impact of nuclear testing by both the Americans and the French, in particular, on Pacific peoples and especially the humanitarian voyages to relocate the Rongelap Islanders in the Marshall Islands barely two months before the bombing by French secret agent saboteurs at Marsden wharf in Auckland on 10 July 1985.
Detained by French military
He was detained by the French military while on assignment in New Caledonia a year after Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior was first published in New Zealand.
His reporting won the NZ Media Peace Prize in 1985.
David Robie’s 2025 talk on the Rainbow Warrior. Video: Greenpeace Aotearoa
Dr Robie confirmed that Little island Press was publishing a new book this year with a focus on the legacy of the Rainbow Warrior.
“This edition is the most comprehensive work on the sinking of the first Rainbow Warrior, but also speaks to the first humanitarian mission undertaken by Greenpeace,” said publisher Tony Murrow.
“It’s an important work that shows us how we can act in the world and how we must continue to support all life on this unusual planet that is our only home.”
Little Island Press produced an educational microsite as a resource to accompany Eyes of Fire with print, image and video resources.
The book will be launched in association with a nuclear-free Pacific exhibition at Ellen Melville Centre in mid-July.
Celebrated sculptor Chris Booth also spoke at the Greenpeace workshop last month, describing the enormous challenges that he and his colleagues in the project faced in constructing the impressive basalt “black rainbow” Rainbow Warrior memorial on Pikipuke hill overlooking the burial site of the wreck.
The centrepiece of the memorial, built in 1988-90, is the one tonne Rainbow Warrior propellor.
