Actually I have to post this just to enlighten people why I find the French govt attitude hypocritical:
The Rainbow Warrior Affair
Diary compiled by Mike Andrews
(Secretary of the Dargaville Maritime Museum)
The Rainbow Warrior, flagship of the International Greenpeace Environment Organisation, sailed into Waitemata Harbour on Sunday 7 July, 1985 to join other vessels on a protest voyage to the nuclear test site at Mururoa Atoll.
The following is a chronological account of the developments in the affair:-
23.4.85 Christine Huguette Cabon, aged 33, a Lieutenant in the French Army and working for the DGSE, arrived in Auckland under the name of Frederique Bonlieu with orders to infiltrate the Greenpeace Organisation. She carried out this task and gained a considerable amount of information about the proposed berthing arrangements for the visit of the Rainbow Warrior. She also gathered information on vehicle hireage, coastal harbours and boat charter rates. She left New Zealand on 24 May, 1985.
22.6.85. The yacht "Oueva" from New Caledonia entered the difficult, and relatively deserted Parengarenga Harbour, bounding over the bar at the entrace, into the harbour itself. The Ouvea had a crew of four, Chief Petty Officer Roland Verge (alias Raymonde Velche), Petty Officer Gerald Andries (alias Eric Audrenc), Petty officer Jean-Michel Barcelo (alias Jean-Michel Berthelo) and finally a docter Xavier Christian Jean Maniguet. The three Navy men were all combat frogmen and employed by the DGSE. They were interviewed by park Ranger Hec Crene on the 23rd and advised to see Customs in Paihia as soon as possible. Hec also rang Lew Sabin of Customs in Whangarei and advised him.
22.6.85. Major Alain Mafart, aged 34, (alias Alain Turenge of Switzerland) and Captain Dominque Prieur, aged 36 (alias Sophie Turenge, also of Switzerland) arrived at Auckland Airport from Paris via Honolulu. Both were in the French Army and Mafart was also a graduate of the Combat Frogman School at Asporetto as were the three Navy men on the Ouvea.
23.6.85. Lieutenant Colonel Louise-Pierre Dillais of the DGSE (alias Jean Louis Dormand) arrived at Auckland Airport. He booked in at the South Pacific Hotel not far from the Travelodge where the Turenges were staying. This man would eventually head the sabotage team.
29.6.85. The Ouvea arrives in Whangarei Harbour and ties up in the Town Basin.
7.7.85. Alain Tonel, aged 33, and Jaques Camurier, aged 35, arrived at Auckland Airport. These two men claim to be physical training instructors at a girls school in Papeete, but in reality are also DGSE agents. It is Camurier who would later plant the charges on the ship, with Tonel in support. The French Government would later, reluctantly, give information about all the rest of the team, but would say absolutely nothing about these two.
Later at 12.15pm, another man, Francois Regis Verlet arrived at Auckland Airport from Tokyo. He was used for last minute reconaissance of the ship in Auckland. Like the other two men, no information was ever forthcoming from France about him or his place in the DGSE.
7.7.85. The Rainbow Warrior arrived in Auckland Harbour and tied up at the Marsden Wharf.
10.7.85. AT 10 minutes to midnight a bomb blast rips open the Rainbow Warrior, moored at Marsden Wharf. A crew member, photographer, Fernando Pereira, aged 36, the father of two young children, tries to retrieve his equipment. A second bomb explodes. As the Rainbow Warrior sinks, Pereira drowns.
Early Alert
11/7/85. New Zealanders awake to hear that their country has hosted its first international terrorist act. One of the nations biggest police investigations is launched under the direction of Scottish born Detective Superintendant Allen Galbrath.
Jean Louis Dormand, Alain Tonel and Jaques Camurier arrive in the South Island, in a campervan rented by Dormand.
As the police begin checking outward airline passenger lists, a tip from a neighbourhood watch group on the Auckland waterfront the night before, leads to an early alert to Newmans Motor Caravans to watch for the return of a campervan hired by a man and a woman.
12.7.85. "In no way was France involved" says Mr Charles Montan, political consellor at the French Embassy in Wellington. "The French Government does not deal with its opponents in such ways".
About the same time as Mr Montan is talking, the police swoop on Newmans in Mt Wellington, Auckland, where a French speaking couple have just returned a campervan, registration LB 8945. The man and woman, whose Swiss passports identify them as Sophie and Alain Turenge, are questioned at length.
NORFOLK ISLAND
15.7.85. Acting on leads, a squad of Auckland detectives fly to Norfold Island to interview the crew of the Noumea charter yacht Ouvea, which was en route to New Caledonia.
Before the Air Force Andover carrying the police arrives, one Ouvea crewman, Dr Xavier Maniguet, from Dieppe, France, a diving medicine specialist, flies to Sydney.
16.7.85. The detectives question the three remaining crew members, Raymonde Velche, Jean Michel Berthelo and Eric Audrenc, who claim to be French tourists. Scrapings are taken from the bilges of the yacht to check for explosives, and the detectives find a map of Auckland with a Ponsonby address written on it. But the police lack evidence to hold the crew, and the Ouvea sails purportedly to Noumea. The yacht never arrived at Noumea and is presumed to have been scuttled at sea.
The Turenges, meanwhile appear in the Auckland District Court on immigration charges. Their passports, airline tickets and driving licences are ordered to be surrendered to the court
23.7.85. Jean Louis Dormand leaves New Zealand from Christchurch.
WARRANTS
24.7.85. Sophie and Alain Turenge appear in court charged with murdering Fernando Pereira, conspiring with each other and with others to commit arson and wilfully damaging the Rainbow Warrior by means of explosives.
26.7.85. The tests of the Ouvea scraping come back from the laboratory, they are positive. It was this vessel that bought the explosive to New Zealand. Warrants are issued for the arrest of the three Ouvea crew interviewed on Norfold Island. The warrants cite charges of murder, arson and conspiracy to commit arson.
As a result of the map found on the Ouvea, the Police and the public learn that a Frenchwoman, calling herself Frederique Bonlieu had attached herself to Greenpeace, gathering details about the harbour and the Rainbow Warrior. The woman is now working on archaeological site in Israel. A New Zealand detective plans to go there.
Alain Tonel and Jaques Camurier leave New Zealand from Auckland.
31.7.85. Christine Cabon (Frederique Bonlieu) disappears from Israel.
Punishment
8.8.85. Almost a month after the bombing, the French media have started investigating possible links with the secret service (DGSE). The growing speculation prompts the French Government to appoint Counsellor of State, Bernard Tricot to enquire into the allegations.
9.8.85. President Mitterand of France condemns the Rainbow Warrior bombing as a "criminal attack" and promises stern punishment if allegations that French agents were involved prove to be true.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, Mr Mitterand writes: "I intend that this affair be treated with the greatest severity and that your country be able to count on Frances full cooperation."
22.8.85. Detective Superintendant Galbraith is told by French authorities that Sophie Turenge is really Captain Dominique Prieur, a French Army Officer based in Paris.
23.8.85. DGSE sources confirm that the woman known in Auckland as Bonlieu is really Christine Cabon, a Lieutenant in the DGSEs intelligence wing.
26.8.85. The so called Tricot Report is realeased. It says there is no evidence that the French Government ordered the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior. The report confirms that Dominique Prieur is a DGSE agent. So is her companion Alain Turenge, now identified as Commander Alain Mafart. Also confirmed as DGSE agents are the three Ouvea Crew members who have suddenly now appeared in Paris. They are named as Rolande Verge, Jean-Michel Barcelo and Gerald Andries.
Authorisation
Mr Tricot says the five agents were authorised to infiltrate Greenpeace and to consider ways to counter its activities, but not to carry out any actions. "At the present state of my information" he believes the two agents held in Auckland are innocent.
The report and its implications that the agents were passive observers, and had no part in the bombing, is widely slated as a white wash. So hostile is the reaction that Mr Tricot tells reporters he has not excluded the possibility he was deceived. And the French prosecutors office in Paris says the three Ouvea crew members will not be extradited to New Zealand because they have French Nationality.
