The New York Times has published an op-ed by a genocide scholar who says that he resisted acknowledging the truth of what Israel is doing in Gaza for as long as he could, but can no longer deny the obvious.
It’s an admission that may as well have come from The New York Times itself.
In an article titled “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.”, a Brown University professor of Holocaust and genocide studies named Omer Bartov argues that “Israel is literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence in Gaza,” and denounces his fellow Holocaust scholars for failing to acknowledge reality.
“My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” Bartov writes. “Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the IDF as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could.
“But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognise one when I see one.”
And resist he did. In November 2023, Bartov wrote another op-ed for The New York Times saying “As a historian of genocide, I believe that there is no proof that genocide is currently taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and even crimes against humanity, are happening.”
Apparently he is seeing the proof now and has stopped resisting what’s been clear from the very beginning. And it would seem the editors of the Gray Lady have ceased resisting as well.
The New York Times, which has an extensivelydocumentedpro-Israel bias, has frenetically avoided the use of the g-word on its pages from the very beginning of the Gaza onslaught.
In an internal memo obtained by The Intercept last year, New York Times reporters were explicitly told to avoid the use of the word “genocide”, as well as terms like “ethnic cleansing” and “occupied territory”.
“‘Genocide’ has a specific definition in international law,” the memo reads. “In our own voice, we should generally use it only in the context of those legal parameters. We should also set a high bar for allowing others to use it as an accusation, whether in quotations or not, unless they are making a substantive argument based on the legal definition.”
Earlier this year the American Friends Service Committee cancelled its paid advertisement in The New York Times calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza, saying the outlet had wanted them to change the word “genocide” to “war” in order for their ad to be published.
What is significant is that even experts who’ve been resisting acknowledging the reality of the genocide in Gaza because of their bias toward Israel have stopped doing so, and that even the imperial media outlets most fiendishly devoted to running propaganda cover for that genocide have run out of room to hide.
The Israel apologists have lost the argument. They might not know it yet, but they have. Public sentiment has turned irreversibly against them as people’s eyes are opened to the truth of what’s happening in Gaza, and more and more propagandists are choosing to rescue what’s left of their tattered credibility instead of going down with the sinking ship.
Truth is slowly beginning to get a word in edgewise.
The New Zealand government needs to do more for its Pacific Island neighbours and stand up to nuclear powers, a distinguished journalist, media educator and author says.
Professor David Robie, a recipient of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM), released the latest edition of his book Eyes of Fire: The last voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior(Little Island Press), which highlights the nuclear legacies of the United States and France.
Dr Robie, who has worked in Pacific journalism and academia for more than 50 years, recounts the crew’s experiences aboard the Greenpeace flagship the Rainbow Warrior in 1985, before it was bombed in Auckland Harbour.
“Hot off the press” . . . David Robie talks Eyes of Fire just after receiving the first copy of his book marking 40 years since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior on 10 July 1985. Image: RNZ Pacific/Lydia Lewis
At the time, New Zealand stood up to nuclear powers, he said.
“It was pretty callous [of] the US and French authorities to think they could just carry on nuclear tests in the Pacific, far away from the metropolitan countries, out of the range of most media, and just do what they like,” Dr Robie told RNZ Pacific. “It is shocking, really.”
Speaking to Pacific Waves, Dr Robie said that Aotearoa had “forgotten” how to stand up for the region.
“The real issue in the Pacific is about climate crisis and climate justice. And we’re being pushed this way and that by the US [and] by the French. The French want to make a stake in their Indo-Pacific policies as well,” he said.
‘We need to stand up’ “We need to stand up for smaller Pacific countries.”
Dr Robie believes that New Zealand is failing with its diplomacy in the region.
He accused the coalition government of being “too timid” and “afraid of offending President Donald Trump” to make a stand on the nuclear issue.
However, a spokesperson for New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters told RNZ Pacific that New Zealand’s “overarching priority . . . is to work with Pacific partners to achieve a secure, stable, and prosperous region that preserves Pacific sovereignty and agency”.
The spokesperson said that through its foreign policy “reset”, New Zealand was committed to “comprehensive relationships” with Pacific Island countries.
“New Zealand’s identity, prosperity and security are intertwined with the Pacific through deep cultural, people, historical, security, and economic linkages.”
Legends of a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific. Video: Talanoa TV
Pacific ‘increasingly contested’
The spokesperson said that the Pacific was becoming increasingly contested and complex.
“New Zealand has been clear with all of our partners that it is important that engagement in the Pacific takes place in a manner which advances Pacific priorities, is consistent with established regional practices, and supportive of Pacific regional institutions.”
They added that New Zealand’s main focus remained on the Pacific, “where we will be working with partners including the United States, Australia, Japan and in Europe to more intensively leverage greater support for the region.
“We will maintain the high tempo of political engagement across the Pacific to ensure alignment between our programme and New Zealand and partner priorities. And we will work more strategically with Pacific governments to strengthen their systems, so they can better deliver the services their people need,” the spokesperson said.
The cover of the latest edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior. Image: Little Island Press
However, former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, writing in the prologue of Dr Robie’s book, said: “New Zealand needs to re-emphasise the principles and values which drove its nuclear-free legislation and its advocacy for a nuclear-free South Pacific and global nuclear disarmament.”
Dr Robie added that looking back 40 years to the 1980s, there was a strong sense of pride in being from Aotearoa, the small country which set an example around the world.
“We took on . . . the nuclear powers,” Dr Robie said.
“And the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was symbolic of that struggle, in a way, but it was a struggle that most New Zealanders felt a part of, and we were very proud of that [anti-nuclear] role that we took.
“Over the years, it has sort of been forgotten”.
‘Look at history’ France conducted 193 nuclear tests over three decades until 1996 in French Polynesia.
Until 2009, France claimed that its tests were “clean” and caused no harm, but in 2010, under the stewardship of Defence Minister Herve Morin, a compensation law was passed.
From 1946 to 1962, 67 nuclear bombs were detonated in the Marshall Islands by the US.
The 1 March 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, the largest nuclear weapon ever exploded by the United States, left a legacy of fallout and radiation contamination that continues to this day. Image: Marshall Islands Journal
In 2024, then-US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell, while responding to a question from RNZ Pacific about America’s nuclear legacy, said: “Washington has attempted to address it constructively with massive resources and a sustained commitment.”
However, Dr Robie said that was not good enough and labelled the destruction left behind by the US, and France, as “outrageous”.
“It is political speak; politicians trying to cover their backs and so on. If you look at history, [the response] is nowhere near good enough, both by the US and the French.”
Susana Suisuiki is RNZ Pacific Waves presenter/producer, and Lydia Lewis is RNZ Pacific presenter/bulletin editor. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
I want to acknowledge David Robie whose seminal book Eyes of Fire has been republished to mark the 40th anniversary of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior. David, thank you for a lifetime’s work of reporting important stories, exposing injustice and holding the powerful to account.
I have found the 40th anniversary of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior stirring. The memory of the shock on hearing the news of the explosion seems like yesterday. And in the days that followed the slow dawning realisation that left us aghast that it had been an act of French state terrorism.
Much has been made in the years since of what a turning point this was, and how it crystallised in New Zealanders a commitment to the anti-nuclear cause.
But I want to talk today about the bigger regional phenomenon that shaped activism, public attitudes and official policies across our region, and what it can teach us today about New Zealand’s place in the world. I am talking about the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement.
Activists and leaders from across the Pacific built a movement that challenged neocolonialism and colonialism, put the voices of the peoples of the Pacific front and centre, and held the nuclear powers to account for the devastating legacy of nuclear testing.
We must remember them. So many activists, community leaders, politicians across the region who were part of this movement. David’s book is an invaluable aid to that remembering.
Also the survivors of the nuclear testing, and all those who died prematurely from radiation exposure and the intergenerational cancers it left them with. Those who were displaced from their homes, and those who had their lagoons and lands poisoned.
The Te Vaerua O Te Rangi dance group performing at the nuclear-free Pacific exhibition opening in Auckland today. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
This movement led to the creation of the Treaty of Rarotonga, the Pacific’s nuclear weapons free zone. It influenced governments and shaped the thinking of a generation.
But as Helen Clark writes about today’s international environment in the prologue to the newly republished Eyes of Fire by David Robie, storm clouds are gathering. With increasing great power rivalry, the rise of authoritarian leaders, and the breakdown of the multilateral system the spectre of nuclear war has returned.
New Zealand faces some stark choices about how we make our way in the world, keep ourselves and our region safe, and be true to the values we’ve always held dear.
The Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movement can help us here. It should inspire us to maintain our own independence, embrace a strong regionalism and be a voice for peace and demilitarisation.
Unfortunately, the current National-led coalition government is rapidly going in the other direction.
It mimics the language of the security hawks in Washington and Canberra that China is a threat to our national interests.
That is then the springboard for a foreign policy re-set under the current government to a closer strategic alignment with the United States and with what are often more broadly referred to as the “traditional partners”. For that read the Five Eyes members, but particularly the United States.
For most of the last year and a half, the public debate about this reset has focused on whether New Zealand would be part of AUKUS Pillar Two, the arrangement to share high end war fighting technology that would sit alongside the first pillar designed to deliver Australia its nuclear submarines.
The New Zealand government has had little to say on AUKUS Pillar Two since the US elections. But defence engagement with the United States has escalated to include participation in groupings around supply chains, warfighting in space, interconnected naval warfare, and projects on artificial intelligence and cyber capabilities.
There are a number of things that need to be said about this, beginning with the idea that China’s increasing assertiveness and growing military strength are the root of the problem.
The fact is that China is already a great power. Its economy has on some measures reached parity with the United States, and it is behaving as great powers do.
As uncomfortable as this may be for its neighbours, this is not the biggest threat New Zealand faces. The biggest threat to our security and prosperity is the possibility of war in Asia between the United States and China.
Rising tensions could conceivably affect trade, and that would be disastrous for us. All-out war, especially if it went nuclear, would be catastrophic for the region and probably for the planet.
Many analysts believe, and I agree, that there is no realistic way the United States can retain the military primacy in East Asia and the western Pacific which it has had since the end of World War Two.
We are well into a transition from the United States being the leader of a post-World War Two international order and since the end of the Cold War the world’s only superpower, to a multipolar world.
The size, demographics, and economic trajectories of China and India mean that they will both be great powers at least in their own immediate neighbourhoods with considerable military assets.
Seen from this angle, it is not China’s great power status which is the biggest threat to us and our national interests. It is rather the risk of competition between the two current great powers spiralling into conflict. No matter how you frame it, then, we are living in a time of considerable risk.
It is not Labour’s view that everything is rosy and that we don’t need to be concerned. On the contrary. Militarisation, great power rivalry, the breakdown of multilateralism, and the daily assaults on international law should concern us all.
Labour’s disarmament spokesperson Phil Twyford, MP for Te Atatu, cuts the ribbon to open the nuclear-free Pacific exhibition. Also pictured are Asia Pacific Media Network deputy chair Dr David Robie (centre) and Reverend Mua Strickson-Pua. Image: Del Abcede/APR
But the more pressing question is what is New Zealand’s best hope for the pursuit of security and prosperity in the face of all this uncertainty?
Let me begin by saying what is not in our best interests. When the biggest risk facing your country is conflict in your region between two great powers, joining one of those great powers in its struggle with the other is a high-risk bet, in more ways than one.
First, it is particularly risky when the great power which you are positioning through your foreign policy statements as a threat is also your largest trading partner.
Second, by in effect supporting a strategy of nuclear and other deterrence designed to contain a great power, you risk increasing the chance of a war that would be disastrous for all in the vicinity.
One of the videos in the Legends of a Nuclear-Free Pacific series. Video: Talanoa TV
Third, I would question whether it makes any sense at all to be pursuing “closer strategic alignment” with or being a “force multiplier” of the transactional and coercive foreign policy coming out of Washington DC.
In sum, the risk is that New Zealand, by joining a strategy of deterrence under an increasingly unreliable partner, makes a negligible contribution to a losing cause, further provoking an unwinnable confrontation with no security guarantees or economic benefit in return.
So, what are the options for New Zealand in this environment? For the last 80 years, whether to conduct an independent foreign policy or one characterised by close alliance with a great power was a genuine choice for New Zealand. But that is no longer the case.
The new multipolar world and the demise of the 80-year-old US-led liberal international order leaves us no choice but to find ways to keep New Zealand and our region safe and pursue our national interests through an independent approach.
It’s Labour’s view that we can pursue security for New Zealand and the Pacific through active engagement with our partners across the Tasman and in the Pacific, and Asia, and be a voice for peace and demilitarisation.
Our defence capability should be based on a realistic assessment of what threats there are to New Zealand and our interests in the region — not an open-ended commitment to interoperability with the United States and its allies for the sake of being part of a club.
New Zealand must be a voice for peace. Nuclear disarmament and international law’s rules of war are under threat, but that also means that they are needed more than ever. New Zealand has a credible and principled voice on these issues that should be heard.
We must urge the great powers to coexist and share power in the region, rather than engage in an arms race and some kind of competition for supremacy.
In this multipolar world with multilateral institutions under such pressure we can still be a voice for the things we have long stood for, including the rule of law, rights of small states, disarmament, open trade, and human rights.
We are just going to have to work more selectively, independently and on a case-by-case basis, with those who share common interests.
NFIP activist Hilda Halkyard-Harawira (Ngāti Hauā, Te Rarawa) features in one of the storytelling videos at the nuclear-free Pacific exhibition. Image: APR
So what would this approach mean for us in the Pacific?
I’ll finish with these three points.
First, we must demand nuclear justice. The nuclear powers have never owned up, apologised and made amends for their toxic legacy of testing. The Forum should lead a comprehensive internationally backed research programme to definitively document nuclear harms, as a precursor to victim assistance and environmental remediation.
Second, we should champion demilitarisation. In Honiara this September, Pacific Islands Forum leaders will meet to consider declaring the Pacific an “Ocean of Peace”.
New Zealand should support the proposal with a strong emphasis on demilitarisation, and an expanded notion of Pacific-led security focused on human development, climate action, and nuclear disarmament outside of intensifying major power competition.
Third, we should advance regional self-determination. That means strengthening the Pacific Islands Forum, and working alongside Pacific people on the things that really matter in the region: decolonisation and indigenous rights, urgent climate action, and sustainable economic development. By reforming labour mobility to be more circular, making sure policing is with the community, and managing fisheries responsibly for regional benefit, Aotearoa can be part of a community of states where there is opportunity and genuine security for all.
There is a clear choice here: get sucked into a new Cold War, this time between the US and China with the risk of nuclear war in Asia, or work with our friends and partners in the Pacific and Asia, be a voice for peace, and pursue a genuine Pacific-led idea of security.
The Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movement gives us a good pointer on the way to go.
Phil Twyford is the Labour Member of Parliament for Te Atatū. He is spokesperson for immigration, disarmament and arms control, and associate foreign affairs. This speech was delivered at while opening the Legends of the Pacific: Stories of a Nuclear-Free Moana 1975-1995 exhibition at the Ellen Melville Centre on 12 July 2025. The exhibition was organised by the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN).
Part of the nuclear-free Pacific exhibition honouring Fernando Pereira, the Greenpeace photographer killed by French state saboteurs when they bombed the Rainbow Warrior on 10 July 1985. Image: APR
A journalist who was on the Rainbow Warrior voyage to Rongelap last night condemned France for its “callous” attack of an environmental ship, saying “we haven’t forgotten, or forgiven this outrage”.
David Robie, the author of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, said at the launch that the consequences of almost 300 US and French nuclear tests – many of them “dirty bombs” — were still impacting on indigenous Pacific peoples 40 years after the bombing of the ship.
French saboteurs had killed “our shipmate Fernando Pereira” on 10 July 1985 in what the New Zealand prime minister at the time, David Lange, called a “sordid act of international state-backed terrorism”.
Author David Robie with his latest book, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior. . . . “media independence and restoring democracy.” Image: Michelle Beard/AP
Although relations with France had perhaps mellowed over time, four decades ago there was a lot of hostility towards the country, Dr Robie said.
“And that act of mindless sabotage still rankles very deeply in our psyche,” he said at the launch in Auckland Central’s Ellen Melville Centre on the anniversary of July 10.
About 100 people gathered in the centre’s Pioneer Women’s Hall for the book launch as Dr Robie reflected on the case of state terrorism after Greenpeace earlier in the day held a memorial ceremony on board Rainbow Warrior III.
“One of the celebrated French newspapers, Le Monde, played a critical role in the investigation into the Rainbow Warrior affair — what I brand as ‘Blundergate’, in view of all the follies of the bumbling DGSE spy team,” he said.
Plantu cartoon
“And one of the cartoons in that newspaper, by Plantu, who is a sort of French equivalent to Michael Leunig, caught my eye.
“You will notice it in the background slide show behind me. It shows François Mitterrand, the president of the French republic at the time, dressed in a frogman’s wetsuit lecturing to school children during a history lesson.
“President Mitterrand says, in French, ‘At that time, only presidents had the right to carry out terrorism!’
Tahitian advocate Ena Manurevia . . . the background Plantu cartoon is the one mentioned by the author. Image: Asia Pacific Report
He noticed that in the Mitterrand cartoon there was a “classmate” sitting in the back of the room with a moustache. This was none other than Edwy Plenel, the police reporter for Le Monde at the time, who scooped the world with hard evidence of Mitterrand and the French government’s role at the highest level in the Rainbow Warrior sabotage.
Dr Robie said that Plenel now published the investigative website Mediapart, which had played a key role in 2015 revealing the identity of the bomber that night, “the man who had planted the limpet mines on the Rainbow Warrior — sinking a peace and environmental ship, and killing Fernando Pereira.”
Jean-Luc Kister, a retired French colonel and DGSE secret agent, had confessed to his role and “apologised”, claiming the sabotage operation was “disproportionate and a mistake”.
“Was he sincere? Was it a genuine attempt to come to terms with his conscience. Who knows?” Dr Robie said, adding that he was unconvinced.
Hilari Anderson (right on stage), one of the speakers, with Del Abcede and MC Antony Phillips (obscured) . . . the background image shows Helen Clark meeting Fernando Pereira’s daughter Marelle in 2005. Image: Greenpeace
French perspective
Dr Robie said he had asked Plenel for his reflections from a French perspective 40 years on. Plenel cited three main take ways.
“First, the vital necessity of independent journalism. Independent of all powers, whether state, economic or ideological. Journalism that serves the public interest, the right to know, and factual truths.
“Impactful journalism whose revelations restore confidence in democracy, in the possibility of improving it, and in the usefulness of counterbalancing powers, particularly journalism.”
Secondly, this attack had been carried out by France in an “allied country”, New Zealand, against a civil society organisation. This demonstrated that “the thirst for power is a downfall that leads nations astray when they succumb to it.
“Nuclear weapons epitomise this madness, this catastrophe of power.”
Eyes of Fire 10 years ago . . . same author, same publisher. Video: Pacific Media Centre
Finally, Plenel expressed the “infinite sadness” for a French citizen that after his revelations in Le Monde — which led to the resignations of the defence minister and the head of the secret services — nothing else happened.
“Nothing at all. No parliamentary inquiry, no questioning of François Mitterrand about his responsibility, no institutional reform of the absolute power of the president in a French republic that is, in reality, an elective monarchy.”
‘Elective monarchy’ trend
Dr Robie compared the French outcome with the rapid trend in US today, “a president who thinks he is a monarch, a king – another elective monarchy.”
He also bemoaned that “catastrophe of power” that “reigns everywhere today – from the horrendous Israeli genocide in Gaza to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, from Trump to Putin to Netanyahu, and so many others.”
The continuous Gaza massacres were a shameful indictment of the West that had allowed it to happen for more than 21 months.
Dr Robie thanked many collaborators for their help and support, including drama teacher Hilari Anderson, an original crew member of the Rainbow Warrior, and photographer John Miller, “who have been with me all the way on this waka journey”.
He thanked his wife, Del, and family members for their unstinting “patience and support”, and also publisher Tony Murrow of Little Island Press.
Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior . . . published 10 July 2025. Image: David Robie/Little Island Press
Launching the book, Greenpeace Aotearoa programme director Niamh O’Flynn said one thing that had stood out for her was how the legacy of the Rainbow Warrior had continued despite the attempt by the French government to shut it down 40 years ago.
“We said then that ‘you can’t sink a rainbow’, and we went on to prove it.
“When the Rainbow Warrior was bombed in Auckland harbour, it was getting ready to set sail to Moruroa Atoll, to enter the test exclusion zone and confront French nuclear testing head-on.”
So threatened
The French government had felt so threatened by that action that it had engaged in a state-sanctioned terror attack to prevent the mission from going ahead.
“But we rebuilt, and the Rainbow Warrior II carried on with that mission, travelling to Moruroa three times before the French finally stopped nuclear testing in the Pacific.
“That spirit and tenacity is what makes Greenpeace and what makes the Rainbow Warrior so special to everyone who has sailed on her,” she said.
“It was the final voyage of the Rainbow Warrior to Rongelap before the bombing that is the focus of David Robie’s book, and in many ways, it was an incredibly unique experience for Greenpeace — not just here in Aotearoa, but internationally.
“And of course David was a key part in that.”
O’Flynn said that as someone who had not even been born yet when the Rainbow Warrior was bombed, “I am so grateful that the generation of nuclear-free activists took the time to pass on their knowledge and to build our organisation into what it is today.
“Just as David has by writing down his story and leaving us with such a rich legacy.”
Greenpeace Aotearoa programme director Niamh O’Flynn . . . “That spirit and tenacity is what makes Greenpeace and what makes the Rainbow Warrior so special to everyone who has sailed on her.” Image: APR
Other speakers
Among other speakers at the book launch were teacher Hilari Anderson, publisher Tony Murrow of Little Island Press, Ena Manuireva, a Mangarevian scholar and cultural adviser, and MC Antony Phillips of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.
Anderson spoke of the Warrior’s early campaigns and acknowledged the crews of 1978 and 1985.
“I have been reflecting what these first and last crews of the original Rainbow Warrior had in common, realising that both gave their collective, mostly youthful energy — to transformation.
“This has involved the bonding of crews by working hands-on together. Touching surfaces, by hammer and paint, created a physical connection to this beloved boat.”
She paid special tribute to two powerful women, Denise Bell, who tracked down the marine research vessel in Aberdeen that became the Rainbow Warrior, and the indomitable Susi Newborn, who “contributed to naming the ship and mustering a crew”.
Manuireva spoke about his nuclear colonial experience and that of his family as natives of Mangareva atoll, about 400 km from Muroroa atoll, where France conducted most of its 30 years of tests ending in 1995.
He also spoke of Tahitian leader Oscar Temaru’s pioneering role in the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement, and played haunting Tahitian songs on his guitar.
"It is no coincidence that all these powers, which refuse to place any limits on their greed, designate journalism as their number one enemy, for they are the enemies of truth and the friends of lies." - French investigative journalist Edwy Plenel Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
SPEECH:By David Robie at the Eyes of Fire book launch, 10 July 2025
Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa
Forty years ago today the French secret service bombed the Rainbow Warrior and killed our shipmate Fernando Pereira in what the New Zealand prime minister at the time, David Lange, called a “sordid act of international state-backed terrorism”.
We haven’t forgotten, and we certainly haven’t forgiven this outrage.
Although relations with France have perhaps mellowed over time, four decades ago there was a lot of hostility towards the country. And that act of mindless sabotage still rankles very deeply in our psyche.
We might have lost the peace battle at the time, but in the long run we won the war when France was forced to end nuclear tests with one last gasp blast at the beginning of 1996.
One of the celebrated French newspapers, Le Monde, played a critical role in the investigation into the Rainbow Warrior affair — what I brand as “Blundergate” — in view of the recklessness and the follies of the bumbling DGSE spy team.
And one of the cartoons in that newspaper, by Plantu, who is a sort of French equivalent to Michael Leunig, caught my eye.
The Plantu presidential frogman cartoon. Image: Eyes of Fire
You will notice it in the background slide shown behind me. It shows François Mitterrand, the president of the Republic at the time, dressed in a frogman’s wetsuit lecturing to school children during a history lesson.
President Mitterrand says, in French, “At that time, only presidents had the right to carry out terrorism!”
I managed to persuade Plantu to allow me to use the cartoon in the book. Not only that, I was later delighted to receive a personal cartoon from him depicting France’s hero Marianne representing “liberty, equality and fraternity”.
Plantu’s personal cartoon sent to the author David Robie. Image: Café Pacific
Anyway, I noticed that in the Mitterrand cartoon there was a classmate sitting in the back of the room with a moustache. This was none other than Edwy Plenel, the police reporter for Le Monde, who scooped the world on Mitterrand and the French government’s role in the Rainbow Warrior sabotage with evidence in pinning the green light on Mitterrand himself.
These days Plenel publishes the investigative website Mediapart, which played a key role in revealing the identity of the bomber that night, the man who had planted the limpet mines on the Rainbow Warrior — sinking a peace and environmental ship, and killing Fernando Pereira.
Jean-Luc Kister, a retired French colonel and DGSE secret agent, confessed to his role and apologised to New Zealand and the Pereira family, claiming the sabotage operation was “disproportionate and a mistake”. Was he sincere? Was it a genuine attempt to come to terms with his conscience. Who knows?
Although I was not actually on board the night of the bombing — I had returned to my Grey Lynn home three nights earlier, after arriving back in Aotearoa on 7 July 1985 after being at sea for almost 11 weeks — I have had to confront some challenging thoughts.
I have often wondered what might have happened if there had been a different outcome that night. I personally believe it is miracle that more people didn’t die.
My cabin was adjacent to Fernando’s and I was able to go on board the Rainbow Warrior after it had been refloated and taken to Devonport naval base. The floor of my old cabin was like a crushed concertina and the bunks were collapsed.
My only souvenir from that time was my rescued passport, which actually sank with the Rainbow Warrior. When I went ashore after the voyage, I had forgotten that my passport was still in the ship’s bridge for safekeeping. So it had been bombed – a salvage staff person gave it back to me, nicely cleaned up.
David Robie’s bombed passport that sank with the Rainbow Warrior on 10 July 1985. Image: APR
I would like to acknowledge those, as well as Fernando, who have passed on in the many years since the bombing. Without getting into a long list, I would like to name those who I have had a particular connection with, Steve Sawyer, the campaign coordinator on our mission to Rongelap, Bengt and Marie-Thérèse Danielsson of Tahiti, Susi Newborn, chief engineer Davey Edward and Rémi Parmentier, an expert into converting protest into policy who just died last month, and was helpful me in my book research.
Enough about the bombing. My book is actually devoted to the humanitarian voyage to Rongelap atoll in the Marshall Islands that preceded the bombing.
Elaine Shaw, the then coordinator of Greenpeace Aotearoa, a very small organisation in those days, persuaded me to join the Rainbow Warrior on its Pacific Voyage. She wanted a New Zealand journalist to be on board to report about the mission.
The other journalists on board who were from several countries — all Northern Hemisphere — only travelled on the Rongelap leg of the trip, whereas one of the important parts of our voyage was visiting Vanuatu where founding prime minister Father Walter Lini was the inspirational nuclear-free and independent (NFIP) leader for the Pacific.
While thinking about these last 40 years and the unconscionable and callous actions of the US and French authorities in inflicting the nuclear nightmare across indigenous communities in remote parts of the Pacific I have asked many questions. You will hear more about this from Ena Manuireva who is from Mangareva in Ma’ohi Nui.
Trying to make sense of it all, I contacted Edwy Plenel before our launch and asked him what are the lessons he has gained from the 40 years as perhaps the pivotal investigative journalist in this saga. His reply speaks to all of us:
1. First, the vital necessity of independent journalism. Independent of all powers, whether state, economic or ideological. Journalism that serves the public interest, the right to know, and factual truths. Impactful journalism whose revelations restore confidence in democracy, in the possibility of improving it, and in the usefulness of counterbalancing powers, particularly journalism.
2. Secondly, this attack carried out by France in an allied country, New Zealand, against a civil society organisation, demonstrates that the thirst for power is a downfall that leads nations astray when they succumb to it. Nuclear weapons epitomise this madness, this catastrophe of power. This is the lesson to be learned from the attack on the Rainbow Warrior : ordered by François Mitterrand, the French president at the time, and therefore the head of the state; it can only be explained by this blindness of power.
3. Finally, the infinite sadness for a French citizen is that after Edwy Plenel’s revelations in Le Monde, which led to the resignations of the defence minister and the head of the secret services, nothing else happened. Nothing at all. No parliamentary inquiry, no questioning of François Mitterrand about his responsibility, no institutional reform of the absolute power of the president in a French republic that is, in reality, an elective monarchy.
I read out the last part with trepidation as isn’t this also the problem in the US today? A president who thinks he is a monarch, a king — another elective monarchy.
Considering these three reflections, this 40-year-old story is more relevant than ever, because the catastrophe of power reigns everywhere today — from the horrendous Israeli genocide in Gaza with impunity to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, from Trump to Putin to Netanyahu, and so many others.
It is no coincidence that all these powers, which refuse to place any limits on their greed, designate journalism as their number one enemy, for they are the enemies of truth and the friends of lies.
A tribute to Fernando Pereira in the Legends of the Pacific exhibition at the Ellen Melville Centre, July 2025. Image: David Robie/APR
Fernando Pereira was one who dedicated his life to truth through bearing witness with photographs.
I guess it is what has motivated me too, a commitment to truth and to using my journalism skills to keep retelling the story and the anguish of the Rongelap people and their desire to be heard and to have a better life. I see my mahi as a calling, a responsibility.
One of John Miller’s photographs of the bombed Rainbow Warrior as published in Eyes of Fire. Image: John Miller/Eyes of Fire
None of this can be accomplished without strong support, the support of the crew of the Rainbow Warrior at the time. The support of those who gave up time or offered skills — and I am thinking particularly of Hilari Anderson and John Miller, who have been with me on this waka since the beginning.
Hilari through her knowledge of the Greenpeace story and people and her proof reading skills, and John for his superlative photos that have graced my books.
And the inspiration of others such as former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, who has written the prologue; Bunny McDiarmid, who has written the preface; Marshall Islands Journal editor Giff Johnson; and Margaret Mills, who was the relief cook on board the Rainbow Warrior on the night of the bombing, and who at 95 has just produced her second book, Anecdotage: The first 95 years.
The support of the entire Asia Pacific Media Network team, Heather, Khairiah, Adam, Nik and Del. And Antony and Tharron from Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.
Finally, the support of family, I owe so much to my wife and partner, Del Abcede. She has sacrificed so much and half the things could not be achieved without her. And I see of of my sisters, Pauline, there too. The other sister, Claire, is in Canada. Thank you co much.
And, of course, a book needs a publisher and Tony Murrow of Little Island Press has been a patient and committed stalwart.
Join us for this guided “virtual tour” around the Rainbow Warrior III in Auckland Harbour on the afternoon of 10 July 2025 — the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the original flagship.
The Rainbow Warrior is a special vessel — it’s one of three present-day Greenpeace ships.
The Rainbow Warrior works on the biggest issues affecting the future of our planet. It was the first ship in our fleet that was designed and built specifically for activism at sea.
Virtual tour of the Rainbow Warrior. Video: Greenpeace
It also represents a continuation of the legacy of the previous two Rainbow Warriors.
On this anniversary day we explored the ship and talked to key people about the current campaign to protect the world’s oceans.
Programmes director Niamh O’Flynn presented the tour, starting on Halsey Wharf.
Thanks to third mate Adriana, oceans campaigner Ellie; author David Robie — who sailed on the original Rainbow Warrior on the 1985 Rongelap relocation mission and whose new anniversary edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior is being launched tonight — radio engineer Neil and Captain Ali!
The Castle Bravo test was 1000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Image: www.solidarity.co.nz
COMMENTARY:By Eugene Doyle
On the last voyage of the Rainbow Warrior prior to its sinking by French secret agents in Auckland harbour on 10 July 1985 the ship had evacuated the entire population of 320 from Rongelap in the Marshall Islands.
After conducting dozens of above-ground nuclear explosions, the US government had left the population in conditions that suggested the islanders were being used as guinea pigs to gain knowledge of the effects of radiation.
Cancers, birth defects, and genetic damage ripped through the population; their former fisheries and land are contaminated to this day.
The Castle Bravo test was 1000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Image: www.solidarity.co.nz
Denied adequate support from the US – they turned to Greenpeace with an SOS: help us leave our ancestral homeland; it is killing our people. The Rainbow Warrior answered the call.
Human lab rats or our brothers and sisters? Dr Merrill Eisenbud, a physicist in the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) famously said in 1956 of the Marshall Islanders: “While it is true that these people do not live, I might say, the way Westerners do, civilised people, it is nevertheless also true that they are more like us than the mice.”
Dr Eisenbud also opined that exposure “would provide valuable information on the effects of radiation on human beings.” That research continues to this day.
A half century of testing nuclear bombs Within a year of dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US moved part of its test programme to the central Pacific. Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands was used for atmospheric explosions from 1946 with scant regard for the indigenous population.
In 1954, the Castle Bravo test exploded a 15-megaton bomb — one thousand times more deadly than the one dropped on Hiroshima. As a result, the population of Rongelap were exposed to 200 roentgens of radiation, considered life-threatening without medical intervention. And it was.
Part of the Marshall Islands, with Bikini Atoll and Rongelap in the top left. Image: www.solidarity.co.nz
Total US tests equaled more than 7000 Hiroshimas. The Clinton administration released the aptly-named Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE), report in January 1994 in which it acknowledged:
“What followed was a program by the US government — initially the Navy and then the AEC and its successor agencies — to provide medical care for the exposed population, while at the same time trying to learn as much as possible about the long-term biological effects of radiation exposure. The dual purpose of what is now a DOE medical program has led to a view by the Marshallese that they were being used as ‘guinea pigs’ in a ‘radiation experiment’.
This impression was reinforced by the fact that the islanders were deliberately left in place and then evacuated, having been heavily radiated. Three years later they were told it was “safe to return” despite the lead scientist calling Rongelap “by far the most contaminated place in the world”.
Significant compensation paid by the US to the Marshall Islands has proven inadequate given the scale of the contamination. To some degree, the US has also used money to achieve capture of elite interest groups and secure ongoing control of the islands.
Entrusted to the US, the Marshall Islanders were treated like the civilians of Nagasaki The US took the Marshall Islands from Japan in 1944. The only “right” it has to be there was granted by the United Nations which in 1947 established the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, to be administered by the United States.
What followed was an abuse of trust worse than rapists at a state care facility. Using the very powers entrusted to it to protect the Marshallese, the US instead used the islands as a nuclear laboratory — violating both the letter and spirit of international law.
Fellow white-dominated countries like Australia and New Zealand couldn’t have cared less and let the indigenous people be irradiated for decades.
The betrayal of trust by the US was comprehensive and remains so to this day:
Under Article 76 of the UN Charter, all trusteeship agreements carried obligations. The administering power was required to:
Promote the political, economic, social, and educational advancement of the people
Protect the rights and well-being of the inhabitants
Help them advance toward self-government or independence.
Under Article VI, the United States solemnly pledged to “Protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources.” Very similar to sentiments in New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi. Within a few years the Americans were exploding the biggest nuclear bombs in history over the islands.
Within a year of the US assuming trusteeship of the islands, another pillar of international law came into effect: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) — which affirms the inherent dignity and equal rights of all humans. Exposing colonised peoples to extreme radiation for weapons testing is a racist affront to this.
America has a long history of making treaties and fine speeches and then exploiting indigenous peoples. Last year, I had the sobering experience of reading American military historian Peter Cozzens’ The Earth is Weeping, a history of the “Indian wars” for the American West.
The past is not dead: the Marshall Islands are a hive of bases, laboratories and missile testing; Americans are also incredibly busy attacking the population in Gaza today.
Eyes of Fire – the last voyage of the Rainbow Warrior Had the French not sunk the Rainbow Warrior after it reached Auckland from the Rongelap evacuation, it would have led a flotilla to protest nuclear testing at Moruroa in French Polynesia. So the bookends of this article are the abuse of defenceless people in the charge of one nuclear power — the US — and the abuse of New Zealand and the peoples of French Polynesia by another nuclear power — France.
Senator Jeton Anjain (left) of Rongelap and Greenpeace campaign coordinator Steve Sawyer on board the Rainbow Warrior . . . challenging the abuse of defenceless people under the charge of one nuclear power. Image: David Robie/Eyes of Fire
This incredible story, and much more, is the subject of David Robie’s outstanding book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, published by Little Island Press, which has been relaunched to mark the 40th anniversary of the French terrorist attack.
A new prologue by former prime minister Helen Clark and a preface by Greenpeace’s Bunny McDiarmid, along with an extensive postscript which bring us up to the present day, underline why the past is not dead; it’s with us right now.
Between them, France and the US have exploded more than 300 nuclear bombs in the Pacific. Few people are told this; few people know this.
Today, a matrix of issues combine — the ongoing effects of nuclear contamination, sea rise imperilling Pacific nations, colonialism still posing immense challenges to people in the Marshall Islands, Kanaky New Caledonia and in many parts of our region.
Unsung heroes Our media never ceases to share the pronouncements of European leaders and news from the US and Europe but the leaders and issues of the Pacific are seldom heard. The heroes of the antinuclear movement should be household names in Australia and New Zealand.
Vanuatu’s great leader Father Walter Lini; Oscar Temaru, Mayor, later President of French Polynesia; Senator Jeton Anjain, Darlene Keju-Johnson and so many others.
Do we know them? Have we heard their voices?
Jobod Silk, climate activist, said in a speech welcoming the Rainbow Warrior III to Majuro earlier this year: “Our crusade for nuclear justice intertwines with our fight against the tides.”
Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific . . . the Rainbow Warrior taking on board Rongelap islanders ready for their first of four relocation voyages to Mejatto island. Image: David Robie/Eyes of Fire
Former Tuvalu PM Enele Sapoaga castigated Australia for the AUKUS submarine deal which he said “was crafted in secret by former Prime Minister Scott Morrison with no public discussion.”
He challenged the bigger regional powers, particularly Australia and New Zealand, to remember that the existential threat faced by Pacific nations comes first from climate change, and reminded New Zealanders of the commitment to keeping the South Pacific nuclear-free.
Hinamoeura Cross, a Tahitian anti-nuclear activist and politician, said in a 2019 UN speech: “Today, the damage is done. My people are sick. For 30 years we were the mice in France’s laboratory.”
Until we learn their stories and know their names as well as we know those of Marco Rubio or Keir Starmer, we will remain strangers in our own lands.
The Pacific owes them, along with the people of Greenpeace, a huge debt. They put their bodies on the line to stop the aggressors. Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira, killed by the French in 1985, was just one of many victims, one of many heroes.
A great way to honour the sacrifice of those who stood up for justice, who stood for peace and a nuclear-free Pacific, and who honoured our own national identity would be to buy David Robie’s excellent book.
You cannot sink a rainbow.
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz
Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira being welcomed to Rongelap Atoll by a villager in May 1985 barely two months before he was killed by French secret agents during the sabotage of the Rainbow Warrior. Image: David Robie/Eyes of Fire
Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Russel Norman today recalled New Zealand’s heyday as a Pacific nuclear free champion in the 1980s, and challenged the country to again become a leading voice for “peace and justice”, this time for the Palestinian people.
He told the weekly Palestinian solidarity rally in Auckland’s central Te Komititanga Square that it was time for New Zealand to take action and recognise the state of Palestine and impose sanctions on Israel over its Gaza atrocities.
“From 1946 to 1996, over 300 nuclear weapons were exploded across the Pacific and consistently the New Zealand government spoke out against it,” he said.
Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Russel Norman . . . “Aotearoa New Zealand was a voice for peace, it was a voice for justice.” Image: David Robie/APR
“It took cases to the International Court of Justice, supported by Australia and Fiji, against the nuclear testing across the Pacific.
“Aotearoa New Zealand was a voice for peace, it was a voice for justice, and when the French government bombed the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior here and killed Fernando Pereira, it spoke out and took action against France.”
New Zealand will this week be commemorating the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by French secret agents on 10 July 1985 and the killing of Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira.
Dawn vigil on Greenpeace III
Greenpeace plans a dawn vigil on board their current flagship Rainbow Warrior III at Halsey Wharf.
He spoke about the Gaza war crimes, saying it was time for New Zealand to take serious action to help end this 20 months of settler colonial genocide.
“There are millions of people [around the world] who are trying to end this colonial occupation of Palestinian land,” Norman said.
“And millions of people who are trying to stop people simply standing to get food who are hungry who are being shelled and killed by the Israeli military simply for the ‘crime’ of being born in the land that Israel wants to occupy.”
Rocket Lab . . . a target for protests this week against the Gaza genocide. Image: David Robie/APR
Norman’s message echoed an open letter that he wrote to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters earlier this week criticising the government for its “ongoing failure … to impose meaningful sanctions on Israel”.
He cited the recent UN Human Rights Office report that said the killing of hundreds of Palestinians by the Israeli military while trying to fetch food from the controversial new “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” aid hubs was a ‘likely war crime”.
“Israel’s ongoing blockade of aid to Gaza has placed over 2 million people on the precipice of famine. Malnutrition and starvation are rife,” he said.
Israel ‘weaponising aid’
“Israel is weaponising aid, using starvation as a tool of genocide and is now shooting at civilians trying to access the scraps of aid that are available.”
He said this was “catastrophic”, quoting Luxon’s own words, and the human suffering was “unacceptable”.
Labour MP for Te Atatu and disarmament spokesperson Phil Twyford also spoke at the rally and march today, saying the Labour Party was calling for sanctions and accountability.
He condemned the failure to hold “the people who have been enabling the genocide in Gaza”.
“It’s been going on for too long. Not just the last [20 months], but actually the last 77 years.
“And it is time the Western world snapped out of the spell that the Zionists have had on the Western imagination — at least on the political classes, government MPs, the policy makers in Western countries, who for so long have enabled, have stayed quiet in the face of the US who have armed and funded the genocide”
For the Palestinian solidarity movement in New Zealand it has been a big week with four politicians — including Prime Minister Luxon — and two business leaders, the chief executives of Rocket Lab and Rakon, who have been referred by the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation over allegations of complicity with the Israeli war crimes.
This unprecedented legal development has been largely ignored by the mainstream media.
On Friday, protesters picketed a Rocket Lab manufacturing site in Warkworth, the head office in Mount Wellington and the Māhia peninsula where satellites are launched.
Everyone’s still talking about Bob Vylan, and rightly so.
A crowd full of Westerners happily being led through a chant of “Death, death to the IDF” at the 2025 Glastonbury Festival was a historical landmark moment for the 21st century, and the group’s persecution at the hands of Western governments is once again highlighting the way our society’s purported values of free thought and free expression go right out the window wherever Israel is concerned.
But one thing that’s not getting enough attention is the fact that many, many other acts also spoke out in support of Palestine at that same festival, and that the crowd was full of attendees waving Palestinian flags. Supporting Palestine and opposing Israel’s genocidal atrocities is just what’s cool now.
This is a massive cultural development, because it means we are seeing the emergence of actual, meaningful rebellion in western counterculture for the first time arguably since the Vietnam War. The artists and their fans aren’t just talking the talk of sticking it to the establishment anymore.
Bob Vylan are the truest punk because look how much they’ve upset the establishment.
For generations the ruling class has been successfully stomping out all politically relevant counterculture, first in the form of direct frontal assault by official government operations like COINTELPRO, and then by the way all major platforms and studios are owned by plutocrats who benefit from the imperial status quo and refuse to elevate anyone who might pose a threat to it.
There have of course been countless artists in every generation who put on a rebellious face and give the finger to authority, but they’ve never presented any kind of threat to real power. Punk rockers who sing “fuck the man” but never advance any actual tangible causes. Satanic panic bands and shock rock superstars scaring church ladies and stirring culture wars.
Bands voicing criticisms of the Iraq invasion but making it about supporting the Democratic Party. Celebrity musicians promoting social justice and equality without ever saying anything that might inconvenience the oligarchs and empire managers who rule our world.
The rich and powerful don’t care if you dye your hair or pierce your nose or kiss a member of the same sex or say Hail Satan. They don’t care if you support one mainstream political faction over the other, or if you yell empty words about anarchy and revolution that aren’t pointed toward any real material goals.
They care very much, however, if you are undermining public consent for military and geopolitical agendas they’ve worked very hard to propagandize the public into accepting.
The establishment never dropped the hammer on Marilyn Manson. Lady Gaga never ran into trouble with the state for singing that gay people are Born This Way. Ozzy Osbourne is living in the lap of luxury with an estimated net worth of $220 million. But groups like Kneecap and Bob Vylan are being subjected to police investigations and visa revocations for taking a stand on Palestine.
Which, of course, is only going to make their position more popular among young people with a defiant streak in them.
It’s hard to imagine how western governments could make support for Palestine look more attractive to Western youths, really. Here’s this unimaginably horrific mass atrocity that they can all watch unfolding on their phone screens in real time every single day of the year, and they’re being told “You’re not allowed to oppose this. We, the stuffed shirts in Washington and London, command you to obey. If you think unauthorised thoughts and chant unauthorised chants, we are going to get very huffy and upset.”
I mean, can you think of anything more fun?
This is after all the generation who’s been told that they need to accept being poorer and sicker than their parents and grandparents and that they’ll never own a home no matter what they do, knowing full well that the crusty old bastards finger-wagging at them for opposing an active genocide are the same freaks who’ve refused to do anything to steer their planet’s ecosystem away from looming disaster.
They have every reason to want to express defiance, and nothing to lose by doing so.
A real, politically meaningful counterculture has been born in the Western world, and our rulers are already showing us that they’re afraid of it. This is a fascinating time to be alive.
Immediately after killing Fernando Pereira and blowing up Greenpeace’s flagship the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, several of the French agents went on a ski holiday in New Zealand’s South Island to celebrate.
Such was the contempt the French had for the Kiwis and the abilities of our police to pursue them. How wrong they were.
A new prologue by former prime minister Helen Clark and a preface by Greenpeace’s Bunny McDiarmid, along with an extensive postscript which bring us up to the present day, underline why the past is not dead; it’s with us right now.
Written by David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report, who spent 11 weeks on the final voyage of the Warrior, the book is the most remarkable piece of history I have read this year and one of those rare books that has the power to expand your mind and make your blood boil at the same time. I thought I knew a fair bit about the momentous events surrounding the attack — until I read Eyes of Fire.
Heroes of our age The book covers the history of Greenpeace action — from fighting the dumping of nuclear and other toxic waste in European waters, the Arctic and the Pacific, voyages to link besieged communities across the oceans, through to their epic struggles to halt whaling and save endangered marine colonies from predators.
The Rainbow Warrior’s very last voyage before the bombing was to evacuate the entire population of Rongelap atoll (about 320 people) in the Marshall Islands who had been exposed to US nuclear radiation for decades.
This article is the first of two in which I will explore themes that the book triggered for me.
Neither secret nor intelligent – the French secret intelligence service Jean-Luc Kister was the DGSE (Direction-générale de la Sécurité extérieure) agent who placed the two bombs that ripped a massive hole in the hull of the Warrior on 10 July 1985. The ship quickly sank, trapping Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira inside.
Former colonel Kister was a member of a large team of elite agents sent to New Zealand. One had also infiltrated Greenpeace months before, some travelled through the country prior to the attack, drinking, rooting New Zealand women and leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that led all the way to the Palais de l’Élysée where François Mitterrand, Socialist President of France, had personally given the order to bomb the famous peace vessel.
Robie aptly calls the French mission “Blundergate”. The stupidity, howling incompetence and moronic lack of a sound strategic rationale behind the attack were only matched by the mendacity, the imperial hauteur and the racist contempt that lies at the heart of French policy in the Pacific to this very day.
Thinking the Kiwi police would be no match for their élan, their savoir-faire and their panache, some of the killers hit the ski slopes to celebrate “Mission Accompli”. Others fled to Norfolk Island aboard a yacht, the Ouvéa.
Tracked there by the New Zealand police it was only with the assistance of our friends and allies, the Australians, that the agents were able to escape. Within days they sank their yacht at sea during a rendezvous with a French nuclear submarine and were evenually able to return to France for medals and promotions.
Two of the agents, however, were not so lucky. As everyone my age will recall, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, were nabbed after a lightning fast operation by New Zealand police.
With friends and allies like these, who needs enemies? We should recall that the French were our allies at the time. They decided, however, to stop the Rainbow Warrior from leading a flotilla of ships up to Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia where yet another round of nuclear tests were scheduled. In other words: they bombed a peace ship to keep testing bombs.
By 1995, France had detonated 193 nuclear bombs in the South Pacific.
David Robie sees the bombing as “a desperate attempt by one of the last colonial powers in the Pacific to hang on to the vestiges of empire by blowing up a peace ship so it could continue despoiling Pacific islands for the sake of an independent nuclear force”.
The US, UK and Australia cold-shouldered New Zealand through this period and uttered not a word of condemnation against the French. Within two years we were frog-marched out of the ANZUS alliance with Australia and the US because of our ground-breaking nuclear-free legislation.
It was a blessing and the dawn of a period in which New Zealanders had an intense sense of national pride — a far cry from today when New Zealand politicians are being referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes associated with the Gaza genocide.
The French State invented the term ‘terrorism’ I studied French History at university in France and did a paper called “La France à la veille de révolution” (France on the eve of revolution). One of the chilling cultural memories is of the period from September 1793 to July 1794, which was known as La Terreur.
At the time the French state literally coined the term “terrorisme” — with the blade of the guillotine dropping on neck after neck as the state tried to consolidate power through terror. But, as Robie points out, quoting law professor Roger S. Clark, we tend to use the term today to refer almost exclusively to non-state actors.
With the US and Israel gunning down starving civilians in Gaza every day, with wave after wave of terror attacks being committed inside Iran and across the Middle East by Mossad, the CIA and MI6, we should amend this erroneous habit.
The DGSE team who attached limpet mines to the Rainbow Warrior did so as psychopathic servants of the French State. Eyes of Fire: “At the time, Prime Minister David Lange described the Rainbow Warrior attack as ‘nothing more than a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism’.”
Don’t get me wrong. I am not “anti-French”. I lived for years in France, had a French girlfriend, studied French history, language and literature. I even had friends in Wellington who worked at the French Embassy.
Curiously when I lived next to Premier House, the official residence of the prime minister, my other next door neighbour was a French agent who specialised in surveillance. Our houses backed onto Premier House. Quelle coïncidence. To his mild consternation I’d greet him with “Salut, mon espion favori.” (Hello, my favourite spy).
What I despise is French colonialism, French racism, and what the French call magouillage. I don’t know a good English word for it . . . it is a mix of shenanigans, duplicity, artful deception to achieve unscrupulous outcomes that can’t be publicly avowed. In brief: what the French attempted in Auckland in 1985.
Robie recounts in detail the lying, smokescreens and roadblocks that everyone from President Mitterrand through to junior officials put in the way of the New Zealand investigators. Mitterrand gave Prime Minister David Lange assurances that the culprits would be brought to justice. The French Embassy in Wellington claimed at the time: “In no way is France involved. The French government doesn’t deal with its opponents in such ways.”
It took years for the bombshell to explode that none other than Mitterrand himself had ordered the terrorist attack on New Zealand and Greenpeace!
We the people of the Pacific We, the people of the Pacific, owe a debt to Greenpeace and all those who were part of the Rainbow Warrior, including author David Robie. We must remember the crime and call it by its name: state terrorism.
The French attempted to escape justice, deny involvement and then welched on the terms of the agreement negotiated with the help of the United Nations secretary-general.
A great way to honour the sacrifice of those who stood up for justice, who stood for peace and a nuclear-free Pacific, and who honoured our own national identity would be to buy David Robie’s excellent book.
I’ll give the last word to former Prime Minister Helen Clark:
“This is the time for New Zealand to link with the many small and middle powers across regions who have a vision for a world characterised by solidarity and peace and which can rise to the occasion to combat the existential challenges it faces — including of nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence. If our independent foreign policy is to mean anything in the mid-2020s, it must be based on concerted diplomacy for peace and sustainable development.”
You cannot sink a rainbow.
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz
