page_title: Rainbow Warrior (1955)
section_title: Bombing of the Rainbow Warrior
hierarchical_section_title: Rainbow Warrior (1955) / With Greenpeace / Bombing of the Rainbow Warrior
caption_attribution_description: Matauri Bay, Northland, New Zealand. Memorial to the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace vessel sunk in Auckland by French agents in 1985.
context_page_description: Rainbow Warrior was a Greenpeace boat active in supporting a number of anti-whaling, anti-seal hunting, anti-nuclear testing and anti-nuclear waste dumping campaigns during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The ship was bombed in the Port of Auckland in New Zealand by operatives of the French intelligence service on 10 July 1985, sinking the ship and killing photographer Fernando Pereira.
context_section_description: Rainbow Warrior, then captained by Peter Willcox, was sabotaged and sunk just before midnight NZST on 10 July 1985, by two explosive devices attached to the hull by operatives of the French intelligence service (DGSE). One of the twelve people on board, photographer Fernando Pereira, returned to the ship after the first explosion to attempt to retrieve his equipment, and was killed when the ship was sunk by the second, larger explosion.
  A murder inquiry began and two French agents were tracked and arrested. The revelations of French involvement caused a political scandal and the French Minister of Defence Charles Hernu resigned. The captured French agents were imprisoned, but later transferred to French custody. They were confined to the French military base on the Island of Hao for a brief period before being released. After facing international pressure, France agreed to pay compensation to Greenpeace, and later admissions from the former head of the DGSE revealed that three teams had carried out the bombings. In addition to those successfully prosecuted, two DGSE divers, Jacques Camurier and Alain Tonel, had carried out the actual bombing, but their identities have never been officially confirmed. On 22 September 1985, the French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius summoned journalists to his office to read a 200-word statement in which he said: "The truth is cruel," and acknowledged there had been a cover-up, he went on to say that "Agents of the French secret service sank this boat. They were acting on orders."
  Following the sinking, Greenpeace and the French Republic entered into an agreement to submit Greenpeace's claims against France to international arbitration. The arbitral tribunal, seated in Geneva, Switzerland, was composed of three members (Professor Claude Reymond, Sir Owen Woodhouse and Professor Francois Terre) and rendered an award in 1987 in favour of Greenpeace, ordering France to pay it US$8.1 million. David McTaggart, Greenpeace's chairman, described the award as "a great victory for those who support the right of peaceful protest and abhor the use of violence." Greenpeace was represented by Lloyd Cutler and Gary Born of Wilmer Cutler & Pickering.
  The wreck of Rainbow Warrior was refloated on 21 August 1985 and moved to a naval harbour for forensic examination.  Although the hull had been recovered, the damage was too extensive for repair and the vessel was scuttled in Matauri Bay in the Cavalli Islands, New Zealand, on 12 December 1987, to serve as a dive wreck and artificial reef to promote marine life. The hull is now covered with a large colony of varicoloured sea anemones. The masts were salvaged and now stand outside the Dargaville Museum.  A second ship, also named Rainbow Warrior, was acquired in 1989 whilst a third ship of the same name was built from scratch and launched in October 2011.
caption: Memorial to Rainbow Warrior at Matauri Bay, Northland
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