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Rainbow Warrior - 30 years on

The series of blunders which tripped up the spies

Phil Taylor additional reporting Catherine Field

Behind every daring spy is a miserly bean-counter demanding a receipt. That may be the single most significant factor in the French government being exposed as the perpetrator of one of the most outrageous acts of terrorism on a friendly country.

Waiting for a modest refund led to the capture of two of the dozen or more saboteurs who came to New Zealand and in turn the unmasking of the French government operation to sink the Rainbow Warrior.

Just before midnight on July 10, 1985, two bombs ripped gaping holes in the Greenpeace flagship that was to lead a flotilla to Moruroa atoll to protest against French nuclear testing. The Rainbow Warrior sank in four minutes. Portuguese-born crew member, Fernando Pereira, drowned after going to his cabin to retrieve his camera gear.

By morning it was known that the source of the explosions came from outside of the hull, enabling investigation head, Detective Superintendent Allan Galbraith to comment, “it is possibly murder and possibly terrorism.”

In the following days, leads flooded in. Four Frenchmen, claiming to be on a winter yachting holiday in Northland, made themselves conspicuous almost everywhere they went. An abandoned French-made inflatable was located shortly before the explosions and an outboard motor soon after. The driver of the inflatable was reported getting into a campervan on Tamaki Drive a few hours before the bombs went off. Alert citizens noted the number plate.

Detectives caught up with Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur on the morning of July 12 as they waited at rental firm Newman’s for a refund of about $130 for the early return of the camper van used to support the bombers.

Newman’s staff delayed them long enough for detectives to arrive. “That was 100 per cent crucial,” says Maurice Whitham, who was second-in-command of the police investigation. “Newman’s did a really good job. They could have walked out. They could have just left the campervan on the side of the road, got on the flight and they would have been gone.”

Mafart and Prieur, posing as Swiss honeymooners Alain and Sophie Turenge, had their tickets to freedom, having changed their flight to 11am that day – 36 hours after the explosions. They could have used the Swiss passports they flew in on as police had yet to discover they were fake, that Mafart was using the identity of a dead man.

According to the police statement of facts tabled in court, they were in Hamilton the day before from where they telephoned their DGSE contact in Paris in a panic. Police traced the number to the French defence ministry.

The accountants at the DGSE – the French Secret Service – may have been right never to trust their spies. Another team of agents used a yacht, the Ouvéa, to bring in the explosives, the Zodiac inflatable dinghy and specialist combat diving gear that did not leave tell-tale bubble trails. When New Zealand police caught up with the crew in Norfolk Island five days after the bombing, a search of the boat turned up a receipt from the Dome Valley tearooms, north of Auckland. It had been doctored – the amount changed from $8.50 to $58.50.

What resonated for Kiwis about the bombing, aside from the breathtaking gall of a supposedly friendly nation, was how it exposed the hubris of the French who thought the mission would be a doddle in a backwater such as New Zealand. The mission to disable the ship was achieved but a catalogue of errors ensured lasting embarrassment for the French.

In the New Zealand of 30 years ago, foreign accents were novel and the unusual was noted.

It is an insular country, distant, withdrawn, which does not think for a second that it will get caught up in the turbulence of the world

From the nosey, blunt, scout, Christine Cabon who posed as scientist Frederique Bonlieu to infiltrate Greenpeace’s Auckland office, to the yacht Ouvea almost running aground with its clandestine cargo upon landfall on the perilous sandbar of the Far North’s Parengarenga Harbour, to the crew’s sexual escapades (including bedding a policeman’s wife), to their suspicious behaviour at an attempted rendezvous with Mafart and Prieur in a Northland forest that prompted a logging contractor to note down their car registration, to mis-judging the tides, to Mafart and Prieur waiting for a refund, the DGSE’s plan unravelled speedily and profoundly.

Mafart blamed politicians. The mission, he wrote in his book, The Secret Diaries of a Combat Diver, was ill-conceived, executed in haste and based on a dismal ignorance of New Zealand, “a little Switzerland of the Pacific”.

“It is an insular country, distant, withdrawn, which does not think for a second that it will get caught up in the turbulence of the world,” Mafart wrote. “We did not know that in this country you cannot make a move without being observed, that informing the police is a national duty.”

Mafart claimed Defence Minister Charles Hernu rejected a more discreet, low-key operation based on many months of reconnaissance in favour of a quick and grand action. Operation Satanique was launched in April and the attack scheduled for mid-July.

The DGSE preferred to blame amateurish behaviour of some of the saboteurs. They “trailed clues behind them like Hansel [in the fairytale Hansel and Gretel]”, lamented Alain Chouet, a senior DGSE official at the time.

The chain of events that led detectives to Mafart and Prieur may have begun with a decision to plant the bombs earlier than planned.

A Frenchman by the name of Francois Regis Verlet, claiming to be a Greenpeace supporter went on board the ship on the evening of the bombing. Though Verlet’s clean-cut appearance and ignorance of French peace groups struck some of the crew as odd, he learned that a skipper’s meeting was imminent and would be followed by a birthday party for one of the crew

According to a plausible narrative, the agents changed plan to place the bombs hours later and instead attached them to the hull about 8.30pm to take advantage of the skipper’s meeting which meant crew would be pre-occupied. They supposedly set them to go off during the party. The French have claimed this was to guard against loss of life because the party was on the relative safety of the upper deck. However, many in the peace movement see this as propaganda and point to factors such as that no warning was given, the blasts were at night and the bombs were of a size to rapidly sink the ship as indications the intention was to kill in order to strike fear into the hearts of all crews of vessels planning to go to Moruroa.

Said Greenpeace New Zealand’s recently retired executive director Bunny McDiarmid, who was on the ship earlier on the day of the explosions, said: “No one will believe that a bomb placed on the side of our ship, in the middle of a cold winter night, whilst most people were sleeping on board was a warning. The bomb blew a hole the size of a truck at our waterline and sunk the Warrior in four minutes. A bomb is not a warning.

“The French agents were certainly incompetent but the suggestion that the first bomb was supposed to be a warning is cowardly and insulting and doesn't change the fact that they remain guilty of murder.”

After the bombs were placed, the Zodiac made its way to a ramp by Teal Park on Tamaki Drive to find the tide too low to get the dinghy and motor out of the water, a consequence of the changed plan. By now the frogmen who placed the bombs had disappeared into the night and the inflatable, helmed by one man, headed towards Okahu Bay looking for an easier landing place along the waterfront, with the Turenges trying to track it in their campervan.

According to French media reports, the driver was Gérard Royal, brother of Segolene, the current number three in the French government and the Socialist Party candidate in the 2007 presidential election.

The dinghy and its driver were seen by two fishermen and a cyclist on his way under Ngapipi Road bridge and into Hobson Bay. One reported hearing a splash under the bridge from where an outboard motor was later recovered. Next, men on neighbourhood watch duties at the Auckland Boating Club in Hobson Bay saw a dinghy being pulled from the water. They watched as bags from the dinghy were loaded by two men into a campervan.

Convinced they were watching the aftermath of a burglary, the boating club members noted the camper’s registration number, LB8945, and phoned the police.

The campervan was long gone by the time police arrived. It was noted that the serial number was missing from the French-made Zodiac.

Next morning at the first Auckland CIB briefing about the bombing, Verlet’s name was mentioned as a possible suspect. He’d left on a flight to Tahiti shortly before the explosions. Sometime during the day the report about the strange rendezvous of the dinghy and the campervan was followed up, even though the sighting was nearly three hours before the bombs went off.

Rebecca Hayter and her flatmates returned from the movies 23 hours after the explosions to find the message light flashing on the new answerphone bought by a flatmate for his freelance photography business. It was from a colleague from Newmans rentals asking her to ring urgently, the police were at the office asking about the Turenges. Hayter, now editor of Boating New Zealand, had been working for the company for just a few months while she took a break after university and contemplated a career in journalism. The couple were neat and tidy, she told police. He was friendly, she wasn’t.

Hayter had met them on July 8, two days before the bombing, when they came in having broken the windscreen. “The only thing that was a tiny bit odd was his insistence on staying with the van,” Hayter told the Herald. When she offered to help transfer their gear into the replacement campervan, Mafart was polite but firm. “No thanks”.

Hayter didn’t make the connection to the sinking of the protest ship downtown but arrived at work in Mt Wellington next morning curious about the foreign couple. “I nearly blew it,” she recalls. “I walked in and said [to another staff member] do you remember those people, the Turenges?' She said, ‘That's them there'.”

Mafart and Prieur had come in to drop off the campervan, having moved their flight forward to later that morning. They had been scheduled to leave in in Wellington a week later.

What happened next handed detectives their first big break. Hayter and other staff called the police and concocted a ruse of a refund to delay the pair. They would have to wait for a manager to arrive to sign the cheque, the Turenges were told.

Detectives had found their car blocked in the Auckland Central station carpark and lost time before commandeering the boss’s car. For Hayter, it seemed to take an age for them to arrive.

Meanwhile, management types (suits and briefcases) arrived and disappeared into offices. The Turenges became edgy. Hayter looked up from a back office to see Mafart staring intensely “and not in a friendly way” through a glass strip in the door. “At some level he knew,” she said. “We pretended to be adding up dates and times, but I bet in the months to come he thought, ‘boy, I should have listened to my instincts’.”

A plainclothes detective arrived, approached the counter and quietly asked the receptionist, who had just arrived at work and was ignorant of what was playing out, where the pair were. Hayter quickly approached and whispered, “right behind you”.

Mafart remained calm and polite when approached by the police officers and after some discussion he and Prieur agreed to go to the station with police. Had they known that the law at the time did not allow police to hold suspects on suspicion of terrorism, they could have insisted on catching their flight which was departing in a few hours.

The pair were held from 9am until midnight. In breaks from questioning, a French-speaking policeman sat with them in a room reading a newspaper. Mafart would reassure Prieur that they would get through this. “Remember the mountain,” he would say. The next day, police followed as they booked new flights at a Queen St travel agency.

By July 15 police had confirmed their Swiss documents were fake. The pair were arrested for making false immigration declarations. That served as a charge to hold them on. By the end of the month they had been charged with murder, conspiring to commit arson and wilfully damaging the Rainbow Warrior.

When police searched the Ouvea after it arrived at Norfolk Island on July 13, they discovered what would become evidence of the crew's involvement in the plot. As well as traces of explosives, Mafart’s fingerprint was found on a Newman’s map. That gave the lie to Mafart’s claim that they had never met the Ouvea crew.

Among other documents was a Greenpeace brochure with a Grey Lynn address scribbled on it. The address led to a Greenpeace member and in turn to the discovery of the scouting role played by Christine Cabon.

Local law gave the detectives just 24 hours before they had to let the three crew leave (a fourth, Dr Xavier Maniguet, had left for Sydney before the detectives arrived), far too little time for the evidence to be processed. The Ouvea was allowed to sail for its stated destination of Noumea. It never arrived. The yacht is believed to have been scuttled and the crew picked up by a French Navy vessel.

But France’s secret mission was sunk too, the links that emerged between the agents and to Paris meant France could no longer deny involvement. Heads began to role up the ranks. Two months after the bombing, Defence Minister Charles Hernu fell on his sword. A week later it was the turn of his spy chief, Admiral Pierre Lacoste.

In November, Mafart and Prieur pleaded guilty to reduced charges of manslaughter and wilful damage and were sentenced to 10 year jail terms by chief justice Sir Ronald Davison. “People who come to this country and commit terrorist activities cannot expect to have a short holiday at the expense of our Government and return home heroes,” the judge said.

Butter, lamb and politics trumped justice, and they returned as heroes to France inside three years. Most of their time served was spent in comfort on Hao atoll, in French Polynesia, to where Prieur’s husband, Joel Prieur, was appointed head of security. She became pregnant. The new French defence minister welcomed Prieur as she stepped off the plane in France, while Mafart received promotions and was decorated by Paris.

Eleven years after the bombing, France ended its nuclear tests in Polynesia following further protests by Greenpeace and Pacific interests.

Read further:

Video: Our reporters on the scene

The political fallout, the saboteurs: where are they now, clippings file, read the police summary of facts, video: our journalists on the ground.

Tim Murphy, Estelle Sarney, John Sefton, Geoff Cumming

Trade trumps justice

Phil Taylor

David Lange went from the best moment of his political career to one of the worst in the space of a few months.

French government agents bombed the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland in July 1985, a year in which Lange and his government were developing what became a long-running campaign against nuclear weapons.

The bombing hardened his stance but, his widow Margaret Pope, told the Herald he and cabinet had no choice but to accept a deal to hand the two spies caught by the police over to the French.

The former prime minister was aghast that French state saboteurs would attack Greenpeace in such a manner, Pope said.

“He just couldn’t believe, first, that they had done it, second, that many of them seemed very proud of having done it and, thirdly and perhaps critically, none of the other powers of the western alliance seemed willing to say anything about it. That made him very angry.”

In those days New Zealand had a lot of dairy trade into the European Economic Community, supported by British influence. “When the French threatened to put a stop to that trade and the British seemed unwilling to do anything about it, it was either sell the farmers down the river or give in,” Pope said.

France began to impose sanctions on New Zealand trade after Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur were sentenced to 10 years in jail for the manslaughter of Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira who drowned when the boat sunk. Lange was convinced lamb and butter trade was at grave risk. Soundings of other EEC members had indicated New Zealand was on its own.

“I had to accept that it was the intention of France to deal a body blow to our farming industry,” Lange wrote in his 1990 memoir, Nuclear Free – The New Zealand Way. “We were a victim of extortion and there was nothing I could do about it.”

Cabinet reluctantly agreed to a deal sealed a year after the bombing whereby the French spies serve at least three more years on Hao, a French atoll in the Pacific, and the French pay $US6.5 million in compensation to New Zealand. The agents, however, were both returned to France early, ostensibly for medical reasons.

“It was known there was going to be egg on the face,” said Pope, of cabinet’s decision to agree to a deal, “the question was the distribution of the egg. He [Lange] took it all, I think.”

The egg on the face in France related not so much to the sabotage but that it was botched. Following denials of knowledge by the French government, Defence Minister Charles Hernu was forced to resign two months after the bombing, followed six days later by DGSE spy agency chief, Admiral Pierre Lacoste.

In 2005, Le Monde published extracts of a 1986 report by Lacoste, which the newspaper said affirmed that the French spies who planted the bombs acted on orders of President Francois Mitterrand (Mitterand had died nine years earlier).

“If Oxford was the kind of highlight, then this was among the lowlights,” Pope said of her husband’s political career. “It wasn’t easy but I think, in the end, he and the Government didn’t have a choice. They just had to go along with it.”

She said it didn’t magnify her husband’s chagrin that the deal came so soon after the high of the Oxford Union debate where Lange crossed words with pro-nuclear debaters, telling one “I can smell the uranium on your breath”.

Rather, said Pope, “I think it settled him in his view of what nuclear politics did to people, especially countries like France. It made them utterly unprincipled.”

In his book, Lange hints at subsequent French dirty deeds against Kiwis. The homes of a London-based doctor and of Sir Kenneth Keith in Wellington were broken into. The doctor had been sent to Paris to examine the health of the two spies and found nothing much wrong, while Sir Kenneth was on the tribunal charged with recommending a penalty for the French returning Mafart and Prieur to France early.

Papers at the doctor’s home were scattered, a radio was left playing on a French channel and a switchblade knife was left on a desk. All that was taken from Sir Kenneth’s home was the word-processor used to draft his contribution to the tribunal’s decision. A carving knife was left in its place.

The Saboteurs

Who’s who of the agents who came to New Zealand to sink the Rainbow Warrior

Catherine Field

Operation satanique.

Objective: Sink the Rainbow Warrior Agency: French secret service, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE)

Général Roger Emin: Head of DGSE operations division. Went to New Zealand on orders of DGSE chief Admiral Pierre Lacoste to see if the operation was possible, but was back in Paris when it was carried out.

Christine Cabon (also known as Frederique Bonlieu)

DGSE intelligence agent who infiltrated Greenpeace’s Auckland office in April 1985, posing as scientist Frederique Bonlieu. Cabon, aged 33, gathered directions, maps, and information for the operation, before leaving on May 24.

At the time of the bombing she was in Israel. On the day Auckland police asked Israeli authorities to arrest her, she was tipped off and left Israel. Cabon had reportedly previously spent years infiltrating PLO cells in Lebanon.

She now lives in retirement with her partner in the French countryside.

Team One: Crew of the yacht Ouvea

The Ouvea was used to smuggle explosives, an inflatable Zodiac dinghy, an outboard motor and specialist diving gear into New Zealand. It sailed for Norfolk Island about the time of the explosions. New Zealand police searched the boat at its mooring there but had insufficient evidence to detain the crew. The yacht was last seen sailing for Noumea. It is thought the yacht was scuttled and the crew picked up by a French navy vessel.

Chief Petty Officer Roland Verge (Raymond Velche)

Skipper of the Ouvea. A combat diver trained by the DGSE in Corsica, he had an affair with the wife of a Whangarei policeman while on the mission. Later worked for private security firms. Now retired.

Petty Officer Gerald Andries (Eric Audrenc)

DGSE combat diver. Bought the French-made Zodiac inflatable and the outboard motor used in the bombing from London firm Barnet Marine.

Andries was arrested on 23 November, 1991, in Switzerland crossing the border, following a request from New Zealand. Although there was a prima facie case for manslaughter, National Prime Minister Jim Bolger did not pursue extradition for fear of trade reprisals.

Andries is now retired.

Petty Officer Jean-Michel Bartelo (Jean-Michel Berthelot)

DGSE combat diver. Retired from French Navy in 2013 after serving 28 years. He lives in the south of France and does consultancy for offshore drilling companies.

Dr Xavier Maniguet

French citizen employed for Opération Satanic but not a member of the DGSE. Thought to have been included as a specialist in diving medicine and to lend legitimacy to the crew. The only one of the four-man crew not travelling on false papers, he was reputed to have energetically fulfilled his cover identity as a playboy traveller by sleeping with many Kiwi women during the operation. His book, The Jaws Of Death , included reference to his role in the bombing.

Maniguet died in 2009, aged 62, when a small aircraft he was piloting crashed. In an obituary, French newspaper Le Figaro said he took part in a secret mission to free French hostages in Somalia in September 2008 for which “he earned the congratulations of the President,” Nicolas Sarkozy.

Team two: Reconnaissance and support

DGSE agents Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur posed as Swiss honeymooners, Alain and Sophie Turenge. Their role was to support the bombers but they were arrested In Auckland returning a rental campervan.

Major Alain Mafart (Alain Turenge)

Was second-in-command of DGSE's underwater combat school in Corsica in the early 1980s. Mafart, 36, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. He was later deported in agreement with the French to spend at least three years in detention on Hao atoll in French Polynesia but was smuggled back to France in 1987 posing as a carpenter named Serge Quillan.

Made lieutenant-colonel in 1989, received France's National Order of Merit in May 1991 and retired from the service as a colonel in 1994, aged 43. His 1999 autobiography blamed nosey, do-good Kiwis for the operation’s undoing.

Mafart is now a semi-retired wildlife photographer. In 2014 Greenpeace America was embarrassed when it unwittingly used one of his photos to illustrate its calendar.

Captain Dominique Prieur (Sophie Turenge)

Specialist in European peace movements. After her arrest by New Zealand police, the 33-year-old received the same sentence as Mafart. Her husband, Joel, a Paris fireman, attended her trial in Auckland and visited her on Hao atoll where, she became pregnant. She was repatriated to France in April 1988 in breach of an agreement between France and New Zealand.

In her 1995 book Secret Agent, she wrote that the agents were “terrified and appalled” that a death occurred. “We hadn't come here to kill anyone ... For me, the death of a man was very hard to take.” In 1998 she received a commendation for her 25 years service to the French military. At the end of 2008 she was appointed to the human resources department at the headquarters of the Pompiers de Paris (Paris Fire Brigade), where she worked under her maiden name Dominique Marie. Her husband was brigade commander from 2007 to 2011. She is now retired.

Team three: the bombers

Kept a low profile, unlike their colleagues, and accounts of their activities still differ. DGSE agents Cammas and Kister claimed to be physical training instructors at a girls school in Papeete. After the bombing, they and their boss Dillais posed as tourists in the South Island before slipping out of New Zealand.

Lieutenant Colonel Louis Piere Dillais (Jean Louise Dormand)

Commander of the operation in New Zealand and former head of the French naval special warfare school. Awarded Legion of Honour in December 1986 and in 1993 was appointed head of sensitive issues (affaires réservées) at Ministry of Defense, which he left in 1995. Was working for US subsidiary of FN Herstal, a Belgian arms manufacturer.

Jean Cammas (Jacques Camurier)

Named by author Michael King as the bomber in his 1986 book Death of the Rainbow Warrior. Some recent French media accounts contradict this.

Jean Luc Kister (Alain Tonel)

Awarded Légion of Honour in 1994, retired from French army in March 2000 and served in security advisory role for UN. Retired in August 2014 but does private consultancy work.

Gerard Royal

Le Parisien quoted Royal’s brother, Antoine, as saying “ ... he was called upon in 1985 to go to New Zealand, to Auckland Harbour, to sabotage the Rainbow Warrior. Later, he told me that it was him who planted the bomb on the Greenpeace ship”. However, Maniguet and other sourcers in France claim Royal was drove the Zodiac. Royal has refused to comment.

Royal’s sister, Segolene, is currently number three in the French government and was the Socialist Party candidate in the 2007 presidential election.

Francois Verlet

Went aboard the Rainbow Warrior on the evening of the bombing, allegedly to provide the DGSE agents with information used to time the bombing. He arrived on the same day as Tonel and Camurier and changed his ticket to fly out for Tahiti shortly before the explosions. Interviewed there by a New Zealand detective, he claimed to be merely a tourist. His father was an executive of an oil company that had employed Maniguet.

Teams four and five

Their job was to extract the spies from New Zealand and receive them in New Caledonia after the mission.

Clippings File

A selection of how we reported on the bombing and the aftermath

Web development and design: Caleb Tutty

Police Summary of Facts

• Original document
• Read the text

SUMMARY OF FACTS

All charges arise from the scuppering and disabling of the flagship of the Greenpeace movement namely the 'Rainbow Warrior' at Marsden Wharf in the Port of Auckland on the 10th of July last.

Shortly before midnight on that night two high explosive devices which had clearly been attached to the hull of that vessel at some time previously detonated within the space of two to four minutes. The force of the explosions were such as to cause a hole eight feet by six feet to the ship below the waterline at the engine room and extensively damage the stern and propellor assembly.

As a result the vessel sank within minutes with the loss of the life of Fernando PEREIRA who was drowned in circumstances which will be described later.

It is alleged that the two DEFENDANTS, both of whom are now stated to be serving commissioned officers in the French Armed Forces, arrived in New Zealand on the 22nd of June and once here took steps in furtherance of a predetermined plan to ensure that the much publicized intended voyage of the 'Rainbow Warrior' to French territorial waters would not in fact eventuate. For such an action to succeed it was fundamental that the vessel had to be extensively disabled so as to prevent her being repaired and manned in sufficient time to enable the voyage to be undertaken. To achieve the mission the two DEFENDANTS, as will be detailed later, were associated with other members of the French Security Forces who travelled to this country in furtherance of the action and who also played significant roles in the scuttling of the ship and the death of Mr. PEREIRA.

The first step in New Zealand of the undertaking was the arrival here of a young woman known as Frederique BONLIEU. She was clearly sent ahead of the main party to gather intelligence,in particular of what was happening amongst Greenpeace members, and pass information back so that further steps could be taken. She arrived in Auckland on the 23rd of April last, travelling on a French passport with a false identity. Prior to her arrival a member of the Greenpeace movement had received a letter from a mutual friend noting the possibility of visit to this country. She was therefore accepted by the Greenpeace members and indeed from the time of her arrival partook of their hospitality and friendship up until her departure from New Zealand on the 24th of May. During her stay with the Greenpeace organization she learnt of and reported on the movements of the 'Rainbow Warrior' and that organization's future plans involving the vessel.

Two days after BONLIEU's departure from New Zealand the group initiated the chartering of a 38ft sloop, the 'OUVEA' in Noumea. Charter arrangements were completed the 13th of June the vessel left Noumea with four persons aboard, these persons subsequently arriving in New Zealand under the names of Raymond VELCHE, Jean Michel BERTHELO, Eric AUDRENC and Xavier Jean MANIGUET. Subsequently their correct identities were revealed as Roland VERGE, Jean Michel BARCELO, Gerald ANDRIES, all of whom are members of the Direction Generale Des Services Exterior, [that is the French External Security Service], and MANIGUET who is a doctor and a reservist in the French Navy.

Enquiries made by New Zealand Police Officers subsequent to the events, on the 10th of July have established that ANDRIES purchased a Zodiac inflatable dinghy and a Yamaha outboard from a marine supplier in London on the 29th of May, i.e. five days after BONLIEU left New Zealand. It is the Crown's contention that the 'OUVEA' was the means by which the equipment and explosives necessary to carry out the sinking of the 'RAINBOW WARRIOR' were brought to New Zealand.

On the 22nd of June, the 'OUVEA' arrived in Parengarenga on the northern tip of New Zealand. On that day the DEFENDANTS arrived by plane at Auckland. They travelled on Swiss passports in the name of Mr and TURENGE. The passports have been established to be expert forgeries and it is now acknowledged that their identities and all other material particulars were false.

Subsequent to the 22nd of June the 'OUVEA' moved down the coast to Whangarei from where, according to its log, it left New Zealand waters on the 9th of July.

Between the dates of its arrival and departure meetings took place between crew members and the DEFENDANTS at which it is the Crown's contention the Zodiac dinghy and the Yamaha motor were handed over to the DEFENDANTS and, no doubt, relevant information on the 'RAINBOW WARRIOR' was exchanged. Crew members also liased with another Frenchman using the name, Jean Louise DORMAND, who in turn reported regularly to Paris. During this period the DEFENDANTS also made visits to the waterfront area of Auckland, and more particularly to the Marsden Wharf, subsequent to the arrival there of the'RAINBOW WARRIOR' on the 7th of July.

The 'RAINBOW WARRIOR' from the time of its arrival in the Port of Auckland remained berthed at Marsden Wharf. It had a crew, including its captain, of 13 of whom approximately 10 usually slept aboard. It was open to the public during much of its stay.

On the evening of the 10th a party was held on board to celebrate a birthday and there was a meeting of Greenpeace Fleet Skippers. Shortly before the explosions about 30 persons were aboard, and at the time of the first explosion 12 persons, including the captain, remained aboard the ship. Some of them had retired to bed in the crew accommodation located on the main deck above the engine room and at the same level immediately aft of it.

At about 11.50 pm the first explosion occurred causing the damage on the starboard side at the level of the engine room. No warning had been given. The reaction of the captain on seeing the massive inrush of water flooding that comparthent was to give the order to abandon ship. A number of the crew were in the accommodation area, including the deceased. All of them except for the deceased made good their escape. The evidence available indicates that he, after the first explosion and about the time the order to abandon ship had been given, went to his cabin in the aft accommodation to retrieve his photographic equipment. The evidence suggests that he was there when the second explosion at the stern of the vessel occurred and there was a discernible but limited increase in the inrush of water. There is no-evidence that he sustained injuries as a direct result of either explosion. He died from drowning.

There is no doubt that the placing of the explosives and their detonating was carried out by persons trained and expert in underwater warfare. Despite extensive Police enquiries, no person has been located who observed any untoward activity in or about the vessel or the wharves that night. Clearly, however, the activities were likely to have been carried out by a number of persons.

The Crown's investigations do not establish the role in this affair as other than in support of those who actually placed the explosives. As part of their support role the DEFENDANTS were responsible for picking up and removing from the scene once of those responsible for the placement of the explosive devices. This recovery was made after the devices had been placed and the timers had been set, when one of the persons responsible for the placements then made his way in the Zodiac from the wharves at Hobson Bay and a rendezvous with the DEFENDANTS. Subsequent to the night's events a search led to the discovery under Ngapipi Bridge, of the Yamaha outboard motor which had been brought by ANDRIES weeks earlier in London. The Zodiac dinghy was left abandoned at the recovery point.

The identities of those who actually placed the devices had not been established.

During the night of the 10th the DEFENDANTS claim to have driven to Thames and certainly by the morning of the 11th they were in Hamilton where they telephoned their contact in Paris and altered their plane reservations to ensure the earliest possible departure from the country.

They were however, interviewed by the Police on the 12th July and denied all knowledge of the 'OUVEA', its crew members and the scheme to sink the 'RAINBOW WARRIOR'. They were arrested on the 15th July and have been in custody since that date.

The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior on 10 July 1985

A DigitalNZ Story by Zokoroa

An overview of events before, during and after the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by French Secret Service agents

Rainbow Warrior , Nuclear , Anti-nuclear , Nuclear-free , Bombing , Espionage , Greenpeace , Protests

The Greenpeace protest ship Rainbow Warrior was sunk on the evening of 10 July 1985 when it was berthed at Marsden Wharf in Auckland after arriving on 7 July. Two limpet mines had exploded against the hull below the waterline near the engine room. The first blast blew the generator to pieces and the second damaged the propeller, stern-shaft and rudder, and cracked the stern frame creating a massive hole. The inrush of water drowned Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira. 

The Rainbow Warrior at Marsden Wharf in Auckland after two limpet mines exploded against its hull on Wed 10 July 1985

The Greenpeace ship had arrived on 7 July to plan & lead a flotilla to Mururoa to protest French nuclear testing

Manatū Taonga, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage

The 1st bomb at 11.38pm blew the generator & the 2d bomb 7 mins later blew a large hole, leading to an inrush of water

(Photo: Three people in front of half-submerged Rainbow Warrior)

Hocken Collections - Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago

Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira drowned after the two explosions when retrieving his camera gear

(Photo: View of the half-submerged Greenpeace flagship, Rainbow Warrior at Marsden wharf)

Auckland Libraries

Who was responsible?

Team of french secret service agents .

The French government had authorised a team of French Secret Service agents of the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE) to plan and carry out the bombing, codenamed Opération Satanique. The aim was to prevent the Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, from leading a protest flotilla to Mururoa (also known as Moruroa) in French Polynesia, where France had begun the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in 1966 and was planning to conduct further nuclear tests during 1985. 

A team of French Secret Service Agents (DGSE) had planned & carried out the bombing codenamed Opération Satanique

Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior was to prevent it being the flagship for another Mururoa protest against French tests

France began nuclear tests in Algeria (1960) & relocated to Mururoa (1966)

France had commenced it's Force de frappe weapons programme in the French colony of Algeria and tested its first atomic bomb on 13 February 1960. France's intent was to strengthen its own protection if there was a Western European invasion by the Soviet Union (which had begun nuclear testing in 1949 and launched Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite, in 1951) or by another force. When Algeria gained its independence from France in 1962, it banned nuclear testing in 1966. France relocated its nuclear programme to French Polynesia where it held its first test in July 1966 at the Mururoa Atoll. Its military support base for the tests was set up on the Hao Atoll to the north-west of Mururoa.    

In 1960, France began testing nuclear weapons in Algeria, then relocated its testing to Mururoa in 1966

After the former French colony Algeria gained its independence in 1962, it banned nuclear tests in 1966

Growing world-wide opposition to atmospheric testing

After the French began its testing programme at Mururoa in 1966, there was a growing world-wide opposition to the radioactive fallout from atmospheric testing. Three years earlier, on 5 August 1963, the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), which proposed to prohibit atmospheric tests and allow underground tests, was signed by the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. After it was opened for signature by other countries, NZ and Australia signed, whereas France and China were amongst those countries who did not sign. The Treaty came into effect on 10 October 1963.   

 During 1972 and 1973, opposition to France's ongoing atmospheric testing at Mururoa escalated. In 1972, the environmentalist group Greenpeace sent protest flotillas of private vessels to the Mururoa Atoll. The following year, in May 1973, the NZ and Australian governments initiated proceedings in the International Court of Justice (ICG) for France to cease its nuclear testing in the South Pacific. The ICG's ruling in June 1973 that testing was to cease was ignored by France who proceeded with plans to conduct further tests in July.  In protest, Greenpeace sent another flotilla of vessels to Mururoa. The third Labour government, led by Norman Kirk, sent two navy frigates, HMNZS Otago and  Canterbury , into the test area, with a Cabinet Minister on board - Fraser Colman, the Minister of immigration and Minister of  mines - who observed two atmospheric tests along with other nations.

France switches to underground testing at Mururoa from 1975

In January 1974, France withdrew its consent to jurisdiction by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and announced its intention to switch from atmospheric to underground testing. (The new French president, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, had ordered that the tests move underground at Mururoa). On 20 December 1974, the ICJ delivered its judgement that as France had made a binding commitment to cease testing in the atmosphere, this met Australia and NZ's initial complaints with atmospheric testing. 

Subsequently, from 1975, France began conducting underground tests in the Mururoa and Fangataufa Atolls.     

In 1972 & 1973 Greenpeace had sent protest flotillas to Mururoa Atoll where France was carrying out atmospheric tests

Legal case brought by NZ & Australia at International Court of Justice led France to shift testing underground from 1975

Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira

French govt had infiltrated Canada-based Greenpeace organisation

The French government had infiltrated the Canada-based Greenpeace organisation, which had been involved with anti-nuclear protests in the North Atlantic and the Pacific region, and discovered the following plans for a Pacific Peace Voyage during 1985:

-   Greenpeace intended sending the Rainbow Warrior in May 1985 to protest against the US Star Wars missile testing     programme on the Marshall Islands. The Rainbow Warrior would also be involved with 'Project Exodus' - helping to relocate     the residents of the Rongelap Atoll for health reasons to the Mejato Atoll, as their atoll had been contaminated by    radioactive fallout from the atmospheric nuclear testing held by the US in 1954 on Bikini Atoll. 

-  Afterwards, the Rainbow Warrior would be sailing to Vanuatu and then continue onto New Zealand. 

-   From Auckland, Greenpeace intended to organise a flotilla of vessels, with the Rainbow Warrior as the flagship, to carry out a     non-violent protest against the upcoming French nuclear weapons tests at Mururoa. During previous nuclear tests at      Mururoa, many of the protest vessels had been boarded by French commandos when they were in the shipping exclusion     zone around the atoll. Greenpeace's aim was for the Rainbow Warrior to escort the smaller yachts and monitor the impact of     nuclear tests (past and present); and place land protesters on the island to monitor the blasts.  

French govt infiltrated Canada-based Greenpeace & discovered plans for a Pacific Peace Voyage being held from May 1985

The Rainbow Warrior was to visit Marshall Islands for protests against US testing; then lead flotilla from NZ to Mururoa

Victoria University of Wellington

French govt concerned negative publicity could shut down its testing programme

The French government set up Opération Satanique as it was concerned that an anti-nuclear protest led by the Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior to Mururoa would draw negative publicity, creating pressure to cease their testing programme altogether.  

French govt set up Opération Satanique as was concerned protests at Mururoa could lead to pressure to stop testing

Alexander Turnbull Library

THE FOLLOWING SUMMARISES:

1.  greenpeace ship: rainbow warrior, 2.  french secret service (dgse): opération satanique , 3.  sinking of the rainbow warrior , wed 10 july 1985, 4.  refloating and scuttling the rainbow warrior, 5.  police investigations, 6.  diplomatic row between nz and france,                                 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>, 1. greenpeace ship: rainbow warrior.

The Rainbow Warrior was purchased in London by the environmentalist group Greenpeace UK in 1977. It had been built in Aberdeen in 1956 for the UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) as a diesel-electric fishery research trawler named Sir William Hardy.  The ship was 131 feet long; 27 feet and 11 inches wide; 13 feet and 3 inches in depth; and weighed 418 tonnes.

After an engine refit, the trawler was relaunched by Greenpeace on 2 May 1978 as the Rainbow Warrior after the book "Warriors of the Rainbow" which includes the passage: ”The world is sick and dying, the people will rise up like Warriors of the Rainbow". On the Rainbow Warrior's bow was a dove of peace carrying an olive branch symbolising the vessel's mission and around her hull were the colours of the rainbow.  

The Rainbow Warrior was purchased in London by Greenpeace UK in 1977, & relaunched on 2 May 1978 with its new name

It was built in Aberdeen between 1955-1956 as an UK govt (MAFF) fishery research trawler named 'Sir William Hardy'

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

From 1978, the Rainbow Warrior was involved in Greenpeace's campaigns in the North Atlantic against whaling, sealing and nuclear waste dumping. In 1981, the ship went to North America where the engine was replaced. Two masts and sails were fitted in early 1985 for its Pacific trip to the Marshall Islands, New Zealand and Mururoa in French Polynesia.  

From May 1978, Rainbow Warrior was involved in North Atlantic against Iceland's & Spain's commercial whaling fleets

Also protested against Norway's sealing expeditions in Orkney Islands & UK's nuclear waste dumping in the Bay of Biscay

In 1981, Rainbow Warrior went to North America where engine replaced. Sails were added in 1985. (Image: Model of ship)

Ship's Length: 131 ft; Width: 27 ft & 11 inches; Depth: 13 ft & 3 inches; Weight: 418 tonnes

New Zealand Maritime Museum

Pacific Peace Voyage

In May 1985, Greenpeace’s flagship Rainbow Warrior sailed from North America into the Pacific region and arrived at Rongelap in the Marshall Islands on 15 May.  As part of 'Project Exodus', the Rainbow Warrior helped relocate c.300 residents and building materials over the next ten days to the Mejato Atoll. The US had been conducting tests at the Bikini Atoll between 1946 and 1962. The largest of the hydrogen bombs named 'Castle Bravo' which was detonated on 1 March 1954, was a thousand times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and led to radioactive fallout on the neighbouring atolls, including Rongelap. Whilst visiting the Marshall Islands, Greenpeace also protested against the US Star Wars missile testing programme which had been held at the Kwajaleing Missile Range since 1984. Afterwards, the Rainbow Warrior continued onto Vanuatu; then arrived at Auckland on 7 July 1985, to begin preparations to lead a protest flotilla against French nuclear weapons testing at Mururoa. 

On 17 May 1985, Rainbow Warrior arrived at Marshall Islands to relocate residents from Rongelap

They’d been exposed to radiation from the US bomb test codenamed ‘Bravo’ which exploded on Bikini Atoll on 1 March 1984

Greenpeace also held a protest at the US missile testing range at Kwajalein

The tests were part of the US 'Star Wars' programme held since 1984 at the Kwajalein Missile Range

Digital Public Library of America

On 7 July, Rainbow Warrior berthed at Marsden Wharf in Auckland, to make preparations to lead a flotilla to Mururoa

Greenpeace Auckland & ship's crew organised 'open days' for supporters to go aboard to view the ship

2. French Secret Service (DGSE): Opération Satanique  

Reconnaissance by deputy director of dgse to nz:.

According to French sources, Général Roger Emin (Deputy Director of DGSE) went on a reconnaissance mission to NZ in early 1985. He had been sent by Admiral Pierre Lacoste, Director of DGSE, to see if the scale and distance of the bombing operation ordered by the Minister of  Defence Charles Hernu was possible.

“ The plan changed from placing a small charge on the ship's propeller shaft rather than on the hull, given the risk that shrapnel and flooding posed to anyone inside the ship. Seeking to find the most effective spot that posed least danger, the DGSE acquired the drawings of the Rainbow Warrior and even carried out tests in the Mediterranean to ensure that the crew cabins in the aft of the ship would not be hit by shards. But things changed in mid-April, when the order came that the ship was to be sunk in a spectacular but still non-lethal message to the nuclear protest movement. A second bomb was to be placed on the hull. "

Source:  NZ Herald, “' Practice' to sink Rainbow Warrior ” (27 June 2015)

DGSE teams of agents:

In march 1985, french secret service (dgse) agent captain dominique prieur became involved with opération satanique.

Prieur was a DGSE controller in the intelligence-gathering and evaluation wing

The following teams of French Secret Service-DGSE agents were identified as being involved with the planning and carrying out of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior to prevent it leading a flotilla of protest vessels to Mururoa:

-   Reconnaissance and logistics                                                                                                                                                                 -   Crew of the Ouvéa yacht who brought the mines, dinghy and outboard motor into NZ                                                                   -   Diving/frogmen team and dinghy pilot  

Mission commander of  the DGSE operation in NZ was allegedly Colonel Louis-Pierre-Dillais (alias Jean Louis Dormand) who was a senior officer at the underwater combat centre at Aspretto in Corsica. He was also reportedly the pilot of the dinghy that carried the divers/frogman and mines to the Rainbow Warrior.

This documentary film captures the arrival of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland on 7 July 1985, the bombing that occurred on the evening of 10 July, and the aftermath: Youtube: Greenpeace International (2005): The boat and the bomb (51:32 min) 

Reconnaissance: In April, Capt Prieur sent agent Christine Cabon posing as a geomorphologist to Greenpeace Auckland

On 24 April, Cabon (alias Frederique Bonlieu) visited Greenpeace with a letter of recommendation from Greenpeace Paris

When volunteering for 4 weeks, Cabon uncovered the Rainbow Warrior's projects & itinerary

She also gathered road & nautical maps & took photos of Auckland

On 24 May, Cabon left Auckland & flew to Tahiti & onto Israel, six weeks before the bombing

(As she left 6 wks prior, her knowledge of the bombs was unclear according to Detective-Superintendent Allan Galbraith)

Radio New Zealand

Ouvéa skipper: On 26 May, Chief Petty Officer Roland Verge (alias Raymond Velche) arrived Noumea to charter yacht to NZ

Verge was a combat diver trained by the DGSE in Corsica

On 7 June, mission commander Louis-Pierre Dillais (alias Jean Louis Dormand) arrived with 2 agents - the Ouvéa crew

Petty Officers Gerald Andries (alias Eric Audreno) & Jean-Michel Barcelo (Bertholo) were DGSE combat divers

On 11 June, Dr. Xavier Maniguet, a specialist in diving imedicine, arrived at Noumea to join the chartered yacht

As he was French citizen employed for the Operation & was not an agent, he did not use false identity papers

On 13 June, the Ouvéa sailed with Verge, Andries, Barcelo & Dr. Maniguetu from Noumea to NZ via Norfolk Island

On board was Zodiac inflatable dinghy & outboard motor bought from London firm Barnet Marine by Andries, & diving gear

On 25 June, the Ouvéa team arrived at Customs at Port Opua in Northland

(Senior Customs Officer later recalled 3 of 4 on board had new uncreased & unstamped passports, & a military bearing)

Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga

Logistics: On 22 June, Prieur & Major Alain Mafart arrived Akld as newly-wed Sophie & Alain Turenge with Swiss passports

Mafart was a Deputy Commander of the Navy Frogmen Training Centre in Corsica

Dinghy pilot: On 23 June, Dillias arrived at Auckland's Hyatt Kingsgate Hotel, & was reportedly the dinghy pilot

(Also rumoured in 2006 as dinghy pilot or diver who planted bombs was Lt. Gérard Royal who hasn't confirmed or denied)

Surveillance: On 6 July, agent Francois Verlet arrived in Auckland from Tokyo & claimed to be a Greenpeace supporter

His role was to carry out a reconnaisance of the Rainbow Warrior after it arrived in Auckland to help time the bombing

Divers: On 7 July, Jean-Luc Kister (alias Alain Tonel) & Jean Camas (Jacques Camurier) arrived Auckland from Papeete

They claimed to be physical training instructors at a girls' school in Papeete, but were the two frogmen

Rendezvous between Turenges & Ouvéa Skipper, 8 July 1985:

On 8 July, Prieur and Mafart, using their alias of Turenge, had visited Newmans in Auckland to swap their campervan which had a broken windscreen. Newmans staff also gave them a map. They had intended to rendezvous with the Ouvéa skipper Roland Verge in the Topuni forest, north of Wellsford, to pick up the equipment for the bombing brought to NZ by the Ouvéa. Later that day, two forestry workers felling trees in the Topuni forest saw a campervan (driven by the Turenges) pull up, circle and drive off. Soon after, a station wagon pulled up in the same area and the driver (Verge) asked if they had seen the campervan; then sped off. Suspicious, one of the workers wrote down the registration number of the station wagon. Several days after the bombing, the worker called the police to report what he had seen. A later search of the Ouvéa had found the Newmans map with Mafart's fingerprint; thus connecting the Turenges with the Ouvéa crew.  

Later on, when interviewed by the police, the Turenges had denied meeting the Ouvéa crew, claiming the campervan witnessed by the forestry workers was not theirs, but the map proved otherwise. 

Source :  Eugene Bingham, " Bit players in Rainbow Warrior drama ". NZHerald (2 July 2005)

Logistics: On 8 July, Prieur & Mafart travelled in a hired campervan to meet the Ouvéa crew in Northland

They collected the mines, dinghy & outboard motor which they gave to diving team at Hinemoa Hotel, Parakai on 9 July

3. Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior , Wed 10 July 1985 

Evening of 10 July, a birthday party & a skippers' flotilla planning meeting were to be held on the Rainbow Warrior

Crew & guests to attend party for a crew member on upper deck & skippers were to meet in the hold at 8.15pm

French agent Verlet went aboard as a guest, purportedly to find out the evening's events, & he left around 8pm

He passed details of timing & location of the birthday party & skippers' meeting to the frogmen, & then left for Tahiti

NZ On Screen

The 2 divers (Kister & Camus) had left Stanley Point, Devonport aboard the dinghy piloted by Dillias or Royal

After nearing the Rainbow Warrior the divers swam underwater using specialist breathing gear

Divers decided to attach mines 2 hours earlier at 8.30pm, as crew would be preoccupied below deck at skippers' meeting

To avoid injury to those on board, the plastic-wrapped mines were attached magnetically below waterline near engine-room

Katherine Mansfield House and Garden

Divers timed the two mines to explode before midnight; then swam towards Harbour Bridge to be picked up

Dinghy's pilot steered to Hobson's Bay to meet Prieur & Mafart in their hired van to transfer gear to Ouvéa

Eyewitnesses saw a dinghy & its pilot travel under Ngapipi Road Bridge to Hobson Bay

A splash was heard under the Bridge, which led to an outboard motor being later recovered

Around 9.30pm, a neighbourhood watch group spotted gear being transferred from a dinghy to a campervan & notified police

They gave the van's rego to police in case it was a burglary. See article in Pacific Monthly (1 Oct 1985: pp. 15-21, 50)

At 23:38pm the 1st mine blew up the generator, followed 7 mins later by 2nd mine damaging the propeller, rudder & stern

Twelve of the crew were aboard, either retiring for the evening or finishing off drinks in the mess-room

National Library of New Zealand

The second explosion had created a massive hole which caused a huge inrush of seawater & the vessel began to sink

The hole was described as big enough to drive a truck through

Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira drowned after the explosions when going below to his cabin for his camera gear

Navy divers who retrieved his body at 4am discovered blast came from outside ship's hull. A murder inquiry was launched.

4. REFLOATING & SCUTTLING THE RAINBOW WARRIOR

On 2 Oct 1987, an international arbitration tribunal sitting in Geneva ordered France to pay Greenpeace US$8.1 million

France agreed to pay for deliberating sinking Rainbow Warrior after Greenpeace threatened to take France to court in NZ

On 2 Dec 1987, the Rainbow Warrior was towed north to Matauri Bay where it was to be scuttled to create a living reef

The reef was proposed by the New Zealand Underwater Association, to attract marine life & recreational divers

Far North District Libraries

On 12 Dec 1987, the Rainbow Warrior was scuttled at Matauri Bay near the Cavalli Islands

Photo: Rainbow Warrior about to be sunk

Photo: Rainbow Warrior almost submerged at Matauri Bay

Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior

The Rainbow Warrior at Matauri Bay

The Rainbow Warrior is located about 2 kms from Motukawanui Island & at least 25 kms (in a straight line) from Kerikeri

The Rainbow Warrior wreck sits 18-27m deep & has become a popular dive site.

Artificial reefs

New Zealand Demoiselle

iNaturalist NZ — Mātaki Taiao

Memorial to the Rainbow Warrior stands on the cliffs above Matauri Bay in Northland

In 1990, NZ sculptor Chris Booth was commissioned by local Ngāti Kura & New Zealand China Clays Ltd.

The masts were purchased by the Dargaville Museum & erected on its grounds in 1986

The Maritime Museum holds assorted items from the Rainbow Warrior which were Police exhibits

Part of group of assorted tools including spanners, allen keys, chuck bits etc

Wood and canvas foot pump from under the stern area (Police exhibit 23/8/1985)

Foot pump: from MV RAINBOW WARRIOR (1955)

Prieur & mafart (alias sophie & alain turenge):.

On the evening of the bombing, at 9.30pm, a neighbourhood watch group had seen gear being transferred from a dinghy to a campervan at 9.30pm. They had noted the registration number and contacted the police in case it was a robbery. This information led police to trace that the campervan belonged to a rental firm, Newmans, and had been hired by Sophie and Alain Turenge. When the Turenges returned the van the morning of 12 July, they were offered a refund for its early return. Newmans staff were able to detain them on the pretext of sorting out the refund, until the police arrived. The police detained the Turenges and carried out immigration checks which revealed their Swiss passports were false.  

This set off a chain of events which led to their identification as DGSE agents Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart.  On  22 November 1985, both were sentenced  to ten years in prison for manslaughter and seven years in prison for wilful damage - the sentences to be served concurrently.   

On 11 July, police traced registration of the van (reported to them in case involved in a burglary) to the Newmans depot

RNZ (10 July 2015): Rebecca Hayter recounts delaying the Turenges at Newmans on 12 July until police arrived (5:56 min)

On 12 July, Charles Montan at the French Embassy in Wellington issued a statement denying France's involvement

"In no way is France involved", he declared. "The French Government doesn't deal with its opponents in such ways."

On 15 July, Turenges are arrested & appear in District Court on 16 July on immigration charges with fake Swiss passports

Their passports, airline tickets and driving licences were ordered to be surrendered to the Court

On 23 July, Turenges arrested & appear in court on 24 July on murder, conspiracy to commit arson & wilful damage charges

The Fletcher Trust

On 22 Aug, Detective Superintendent Galbraith was told by French authorities that Sophie Turenge is Dominique Prieur

Galbraith was informed that she is a Captain in the French Army based in Paris

On 4 Nov, the charge against Prieur & Mafart was reduced from murder to manslaughter

Reason was that they not personally responsible for placing bombs & didn't intend killing anyone

On 22 Nov, at the Auckland District Court, Prieur & Mafart pleaded guilty to manslaughter & wilful damage

They were sentenced to 10 years on 1st charge & 7 years on 2d charge, which were to be served concurrently

Ouvéa crew:

Following the bombing, the Senior Customs officer at Port Opua recalled irregularites with Ouvéa crew & reported this

When Ouvéa arrived 25 June, he'd noted 3 of the crew had a military bearing & brand-new, uncreased & unmarked passports

On 13 July, the Ouvéa had arrived at Norfolk Island & Dr Maniguet flew the next day to Sydney to travel to France

The NZ police flew to Norfolk Island to carry out investigations, assisted by 3 local Australian Federal Police

On 15 July, NZ police detained the 3 Ouvéa naval crew (Verge, Andries & Barcelo) & took forensic tests of the ship

Police also found a Newmans map (thus connecting the Turenges) & a postcard with a handwritten Ponsonby address

As Australian law would not allow the crew to be detained to await forensic test results, they left on 16 July

They were met by French submarine Rubis, which scuttled Ouvéa, & arrived at Tahiti on 22 July

On 26 July 1985, the forensic tests taken aboard the Ouvéa reveal it had brought the explosives to NZ

Warrants were issued for the arrest of the three Ouvéa naval crew for murder, arson & conspiracy to commit arson

Swiss police arrest French agent Gerald Andrias (Eric Audrenc), Nov 1991: 

On 26 November 1991 Swiss police arrested and held French DGSE Rainbow Warrior bombing team leader Gerald Andries on an outstanding 1985 Interpol warrant as he tried to enter Switzerland from France.

The Financial Review reported (17 Dec 1991), that extradition proceedings had begun in Auckland:

Court precedings began in Auckland yesterday [ 16 December 1991] to extradite a member of the French secret service to New Zealand on charges of being involved in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior... Last month French national, Gerald Andries, was arrested in Switzerland after he was picked up by Swiss police for travelling on a train without a passport.  The Swiss found Andries was wanted for murder on an international warrant, issued by New Zealand police in connection with the bombing of the Greenpeace flagship, Rainbow Warrior, in Auckland Harbour in July 1985.

Source : Wendy Frew (17 December 1991), " Extradition underway for third Rainbow Warrior agent ". Financial Review.    

However, the  National PM Jim Bolger decided not to pursue extradition of Andrias for fear of trade reprisals.

26 Nov 1991: Swiss police arrested Gerald Andries for travelling on a train without passport & found an Interpol warrant

The arrest warrant had been issued by NZ in 1985 for Andries' role on the ship Ouvéa which brought the mines to NZ

V.C. Browne & Son

On 16 Dec 1991, court proceedings began in Auckland to extradite Andries to NZ, which were then halted by the NZ Govt

(Speculation had endured whether the extradition would proceed -- see Pacific Islands article)

Diving team & dinghy pilot:

The police and news media continued to carry out investigations to identify who was the pilot of the dinghy and who were the frogmen/divers who placed the mines; and if anyone else assisted with the operation. Their investigations led to the identification of other French secret agents who had since left New Zealand. In latter years, some of the secret agents, who had since retired, voluntarily opened up to the media about their involvement. However, the information gathered did not eventuate in the extradition of any of the agents from overseas, largely due to the lapse in time.   

On 11 July, Dillias & divers Kister & Camus arrived in the South Island and, posing as tourists, went skiing at Mt Hutt

They had crossed the Cook Strait aboard a campervan

On 23 July, Lt. Col. Louis-Pierre Dillais flies to Australia from Christchurch after posing as a tourist & going skiing

On 26 July, Kister & Camus flew to Tahiti from Auckland after posing as tourists & skiing in South Island

Interview with former French agent Jean-Luc Kister (Alain Tonei), 2015:

In 2015, former French agent Jean-Luc Kister (alias Alain Tonei) confirmed in interviews with TVNZ's Sunday programme and Mediapart that he had placed the bombs on the Rainbow Warrior.  TVNZ's Sunday programme had located Kister, who had retired from the DGSE about five years earlier, in north- eastern France. Kister stated that his team were not aware that people were on the ship. He gave his apologies to the family of Fernando Pereira, to Greenpeace members on board the vessel, and to the people of New Zealand. 

Find out more:

• Sharon Gillies (7 Sept 2015), " I hope it allows him to sleep better " , RNZ 
• Kim Willsher (6 Sept 2015), " French spy who sank Greenpeace ship apologises for lethal bombing ",  The Guardian

In 2015, Jean-Luc Kister (Tonei) admitted publicly on TVNZ's Sunday that he & Jean Camas (Camurier) placed the bombs

He & his team believed people were not on board & he apologised to Pereira's family & those on board & to NZ

Christine Cabon (alias Frederique Bonlieu):

 On 19 July 1985, Christine Cabon wrote to the Greenpeace organisers after she learned about the bombing. The following details, said to have been first reported in a 1986 news story, were recounted in a Stuff.co.nz article in 2017: 

In a letter from Israel postmarked July 19, a week before she disappeared, she lamented Pereira's death: "What can I say about such a news? I feel so choked." She wrote that if the French Government was behind the bombing, its strategy had backfired and given even more support to the campaign against French nuclear tests.  "Why such a monstrosity?" she asked.  

Cabon stated that she was already aboard an Air France flight home from Israel when she heard police were to arrest her. She had left Auckland on 24 May and flown to Tahiti and onto Israel, six weeks before the bombing.

Source:  Cecile Meier & Kelly Dennett (9 July 2017), " Thirty-two years after the Rainbow Warrior bombing, unrepentant French spy Christine Cabon is foun d ", Stuff.co.nz    

When aboard Ouvéa, police had found a postcard with a Ponsonby address which led them to Christine Cabon

People living at the address recognised the postcard & recalled their address was written for Frederique Bonlieu (Cabon)

On 24 July 1985, NZ detectives issued warrant for Cabon’s arrest after tracking her to an archaelogical dig in Israel

2 days later, the Star broke the news about Cabon & NZ Herald reported her imminent arrest. Cabon disappeared that day.

According to Cabon she was already aboard an Air France flight home from Israel when she heard police were to arrest her

(Six weeks prior to the bombing, she had flown from Auckland on 24 May to Tahiti and onto Israel.)

Interview with former French agent Christine Cabon (Frederique Bonlieu), 2017:

Reporters Cecile Meier and Kelly Dennett tracked Christine Cabon to a small French village, where she was living in retirement after joining the French army in 1977 when aged 26 years.

"Thanks for giving me the opportunity to express myself but I do not intend to go off the reservation," she says. "It's an ethical question." Sometimes she gets frustrated hearing only one version of the events, but says she will respect her contractual obligation to the army – which forbids her speaking for 50 years after seeing active service.  "My job was what it was," she says. "I entered the army to prevent international and national conflict because my family, originally from Alsace, suffered from the war.  My career choice is my problem but I ended up [involved in the Rainbow Warrior affair] as a result of my choice."I think all military people who serve their countries can find themselves in situations they hadn't wished for." 

Source:   Ibid   

In 2017, Christine Cabon was found to be living in retirement in the village of Lasseubetat, in the southwest of France

Cabon's whereabouts had been traced by Stuff reporters Cecile Meier & Kelly Dennett (See Stuff.co.nz, 9 July 2017)

What happened to the other French agents?

Ongoing police and media investigations uncovered the identities of several of the other members of the team of French Secret Service agents involved with Opération Satanique, and arrest warrants were issued. However, no further arrests were made due to some of those agents whereabouts not being known and/or the time that had lapsed since the bombing for extradition to NZ to be granted for trial.  

Ongoing police & media investigations uncovered the identities of several other agents & arrest warrants were issued

However, no further arrests were made as some agents' whereabouts unknown, or too much time had lapsed for extradition

6.  Diplomatic row between NZ & France

France denies then accepts responsibilty:.

London Sunday Times claimed President Mitterrand had known of the bombing plan &, therefore, implicitly authorised it

On 25 July, the French Government denied all knowledge of the operation to bomb and sink the Rainbow Warrior

French media reported the theory British intelligence service MI6 had planned the bombing to discredit France

Another theory was French secret agents bought the dinghy from people close to MI6 who had prior knowledge of the bombs

On 26 July, 3 agents stating they were the frogmen in the boat before the explosion turned themselves into French police

French authorities released them saying NZ arrest warrants lacked evidence & couldn't be extradited under French law

Under pressure, on 8 Aug the French Govt announced an inquiry by Bernard Tricot. Findings (20 Aug) implicated France.

Tricot's report stated 5 agents - Prieur, Mafart & the 3 Ouvéa crew - were to only spy on Greenpeace

On 18 Sept, 'Le Monde' discloses aspects of the DGSE operation, quoting DSGE sources

Subsequently, French Defence Minister Charles Hernu resigned & Admiral Pierre Lacoste, Director of the DGSE, was sacked

On 22 Sept, French PM Laurent Fabius held a press conference where he publicly stated France's involvement

He read from a statement that included:, "The truth is cruel. Agents of the DGSE sank this boat. They acted on orders."

During 1985 interview, Labour PM David Lange noted reaction of world powers, in contrast to acts of terrorism elsewhere

See clip from TV documentary, 'Death of the Rainbow Warrior' 1985 (31 secs)

Diplomatic row threatens NZ exports trade:

A diplomatic row had ensued between NZ and France, which also impacted on trade between each country. The situation escalated with France threatening to influence the European Economic Community (EEC) to reduce the quota of butter imports from NZ. On the encouragement of the Netherlands Prime Minister, both NZ and France agreed to consult with the United Nations Secretary-General to resolve the situation. 

A diplomatc row ensued between NZ & France

Cartoon (29 Aug 1985): PM David Lange calling for an apology & five frogmen creeping up to plant a bomb under his chair

NZ PM David Lange ruled out requests by French President Mitterand for the early release of Prieur & Mafart

When France sought to influence EEC to oppose NZ butter exports to Britain, Lange said NZ justice system not for sale

France threatened to influence European Economic Community (EEC) to reduce quota of butter from NZ

France also impeded agricultural imports from NZ & New Caledonia stopped importing NZ lamb

Apology from France following UN Secretary- General ruling:

To reach a resolution, both NZ and France approached the United Nations Secretary-General on 19 June 1986 for a binding ruling. A tribunal hearing was set up and the findings led to the UN Secretary-General issuing three rulings, which France and NZ agreed to in writing on 9 July 1986:  

-   France to apologise and give US$7 million to NZ

-   France to not interfere with NZ trade agreements

-   The two French Secret Service agents, Dominique Prieur and Alan Mafart, who had been arrested and imprisoned in NZ for      ten years, to be sent to the French military facility on the Hao Atoll in French Polynesia to serve not less than three      years. (However, France allowed both agents to leave the Hao Atoll for Paris within two years for medical reasons without      NZ's mutual consent, and did not return them to complete their sentences despite protests from NZ.)

On 19 June 1986, following advice by Netherlands PM, NZ & France approached UN Secretary-General for a resolution

On 8 May, a Tribunal hearing including a NZ rep & French rep, & a Registrar & US Deputy Registrar began meeting in N.Y.

On 6 July 1986, UN Sec-Gen set out his ruling & NZ & France signed & exchanged letters of agreement in Paris on 9 July

(Cartoonist states "L'Honneur est preserve"- a deal is duly done and it is 'spies for butter')

On 9 July 1986, UN Secretary-General publicly announced his ruling that France to give apology & US$7m to NZ

Also, France to not interfere with NZ trade negotiations

UN Sec-Gen also ruled that NZ to transfer Prieur & Mafart to French military base on Hao Atoll

Both prisoners were to serve not less than 3 years at Hao

Prieur & Mafart transferred from NZ prison to French military facility on Hao Atoll: 

On 23 July 1986, Prieur & Mafart transferred to Hao Atoll's French Military Base in French Polynesia to serve 3 years

France used the military base & its airstrip as a staging post for nuclear testing sites at Mururoa & Fangataufa atolls

As Military Base didn't have a jail, it was likened to being at Club Med. They could mix with staff, family & friends.

A few months after Prieur arrived, husband Joel joined her as Head of Security (See Pacific Island Monthly, 1 Aug 1986)

Mafart & Prieu leave Hao Atoll early, 1987 & 1988:

On 23 July 1986, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur arrived at the Hao Atoll to serve not less than three years imprisonment at the French Military Base, of which the expiration date would be 22 July 1999.

Major Alain Mafart left Hao on 14 Dec 1987:

Mafart left the Hao Atoll's French Military Base on 14 December 1897 for health reasons. That same day,  the NZ Prime Minister David Lange protested to the French PM that Mafart had left without the mutual consent of NZ. 

On arrival in Paris, Mafart was hospitalised until 6 January under medical supervision. After being discharged from hospital, he lived in a house on the hospital grounds with weekly supervision by Professor Daly. A NZ doctor, Dr Croxson, was sent to verify Mafart's medical condition and he reported on 16 January that Mafart could return to Hao as the medical emergency was over. However, on 27 January, Professor Daly issued his final medical report which stated, in accordance with the rules of fitness for French military personnel, " Major Mafart was declared unfit to serve overseas for an indeterminate period " and should remain in France to enable medical follow-ups. 

Mafart was subsequently declared "repatriated for health reasons" on 11 March 1988.  He was assigned to work on a temporary basis at the Head Office of the Nuclear Experimentation Center. Then, on 1 Sept 1988, he began studying at the War College in Paris. On 1 Oct 1988, Mafart was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He teceived France's National Order of Merit in May 1991, and retired three years later as a Colonel aged 43.   

As Mafart was not fit for military service overseas, the French had invoked, inter alia, the French military law to not return him to Hao.  However, the UN Secretary-General original ruling for Mafart to spend not less than three years on Hao was not dependent on being able to give any military service at the military base. 

Source : Reports of International Arbitral Awards Recueil Des Sentences Arbitrales, " Case concerning the difference between New Zealand and France concerning the interpretation or application of two agreements, concluded on 9 July 1986 between the two States and which related to the problems arising from the Rainbow Warrior Affair ", (30 April 1990 XX, p.240)

On 14 Dec 1987, Mafart was taken from Hao to Paris for medical treatment without NZ's consent

According to UN Sec-Gen ruling (9 July), if either agent left Hao, mutual consent had to be given by France & NZ

University of Otago

On 14 Dec 1987, NZ PM David Lange wrote to French PM protesting Mafart's removal from Hao without NZ's mutual agreement

He also stated if Mafart's health does not enable his return, the matter would be referred to UN Sec-Gen for a decision

Captain Dominique Prieur left Hao on 5 May 1988:

Dominque Prieur left the Hao Atoll's Military Base on 5 May 1988 with her husband Joel, when she was six weeks pregnant with her first child. She had also received the news that her father was unwell and was receiving cancer treatment in Paris. After visiting her father in hospital (who then passed away on 16 June), Prieur was placed on maternity leave, as per the French military code. 

After the baby's birth on 15 December 1988, France asserted that Prieur could not be sent back with a baby to Hao Atoll.  NZ argued that just as Prieur's husband was allowed to live with her in Hao, her husband and child would be allowed to accompany her or not, as she chooses.

Source : Ibid , p.245

On 5 May 1988, Prieur who'd become pregnant, was taken to Paris without NZ's consent, & gave birth on 15 Dec

At Hao, she'd also received news her father, hospitalized for cancer treatment, was dying - he passed away on 16 June

NZ protested non-return of Prieur & Mafart to Hao Atoll:

When questioned by New Zealand, the French Government had responded that it believed that legitimate reasons had prevented the return of Mafart and Prieur to the Hao Atoll Island. 

When NZ protested to the United Nations during 1989, that Mafart and Prieur should return to the Hao Atoll, the response was that too lengthy a time had passed. The obligation for them to return to the Hao Atoll no longer fell within the period of being imprisoned until 22 July 1989 - the three-year expiration date of the 1986 agreement that had been signed by NZ and France.

Source: Ibid , p.258 

In 1989, NZ protested the agents non-return to Hao. Due to length of time exceeding 22 July 1989, UN didn't action.

Instead, UN awarded $3.5m for NZ/France Friendship Fund. (Dominique Prieur did return to Hao in Dec 2012 for a holiday)

                                >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

• Cecile Meier & Kelly Dennett (9 July 2017), " Thirty-two years after the Rainbow Warrior bombing, unrepentant French spy Christine Cabon is found ", Stuff.co.nz
• Eugene Bingham, " Bit players in Rainbow Warrior drama ". NZHerald (2 July 2005) 
• Greenpeace: The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior
• New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, Rainbow Warrior , October 1996
• Phil Taylor, "T he Rainbow Warrior: 30 years on" , NZHerald
• Reports of International Arbitral Awards Recueil Des Sentences Arbitrales: " Case concerning the difference between New Zealand and France concerning the interpretation or application of two agreements, concluded on 9 July 1986 between the two States and which related to the problems arising from the Rainbow Warrior Affair" , 30 April 1990 XX, pp. 215-284
• Samia Henni, " Nuclear powers: France’s atomic bomb tests in the Algerian Sahara ", The Architectural review (22 June 2022)
• Sharon Gillies (7 Sept 2015), " I hope it allows him to sleep better ", RNZ 
• Stanley Meisler, " Fabius Challenges New Zealand to Offer Proof of French Guilt in Bombing of Ship ", Los Angeles Times, 28 Aug 1985  
• Steve Erwood (2011), The Greenpeace chronicles: 40 years of protecting the planet , (The Netherlands: Greenpeace International)
• Torpedo Bay Navy Museum: Salvage of the Rainbow Warrior
• Wendy Frew (17 December 1991), " Extradition underway for third Rainbow Warrior agent ". Financial Review.     
• Wikipedia: Dominque Prieur
• Toutube: Greenpeace International (2005): The boat and the bomb (51:32 min)   

This DigitalNZ story was compiled in July 2023.

• 10 must-see and do in Ouvéa
• Destination New Caledonia
• The Islands

For those in search of authentic experiences against a picturesque backdrop, Ouvéa atoll offers a diverse array of activities that promise an extraordinary stay. With its 25 kilometres of pristine white sandy beaches , a UNESCO World Heritage-listed lagoon , and the majestic cliffs of Lékiny , it’s no wonder why Ouvéa is affectionately known as “the island closest to paradise.” Embark on enchanting adventures both south and north of the island, guided by locals, and explore the unspoiled beauty of this unique destination. No visit is complete without engaging with Ouvéa’s welcoming community and experiencing the hospitality of a Kanak tribe . Join us as we unveil the top things to do in Ouvéa for an unforgettable journey in the Loyalty Islands!

Hike to Hnimëk

Embark on an extraordinary journey to get up close with the lagoon’s sharks ! Guided by a native islander, this adventure starts with a 4X4 ride followed by a picturesque walk through coconut groves and crystal-clear waters. The highlight? An encounter with lemon, white-tip, and black-tip sharks at the entrance to the “nursery.”

Sail towards the Pleiades

Savour the opportunity to witness manta rays, turtles, and vibrant marine life amidst breathtaking coral formations! The Pléiades du Sud and Pléiades du Nord , located to the south and north of Ouvéa, beckon with ideal settings for boat trips, leisurely strolls, snorkelling , and picnicking, all guided by a local expert.

Swim in turquoise waters

A must-see attraction on Ouvéa atoll, the Mouli Bridge serves as the sole link between the island’s south and north. Pause on the footbridge for stunning photo opportunities, observe turtles and stingrays below, then descend to the exquisite Mouli Beach . Stretching over 2 kilometres, it ranks among Ouvéa’s most pristine beaches. After relaxing in the sand, indulge in a lagoon-view cocktail at Paradis d’Ouvéa hotel.

Explore the cliffs of Lékiny

For a profound connection with nature, embark on a guided excursion to the Lekiny Cliffs ! Adorned with lush vegetation, these awe-inspiring rock formations provide an unforgettable adventure, including a water crossing on foot. During high tide, ensure to have a waterproof bag! This remarkable journey alternates between cliffside hikes, cave exploration, and snorkelling among vibrant lagoon fish .

Dance with manta rays

Did you know that manta rays can boast a wingspan of up to 7 metres? Ouvéa atoll, alongside the Isle of Pines, stands out as one of the prime spots to witness these majestic creatures. Opt for a snorkelling expedition or nautical tour in the Pleiades for an awe-inspiring encounter with these graceful giants

Experience a Tribal Welcome

The people of the Loyalty Islands are eager to share their history and traditions with visitors. In Ouvéa, as throughout New Caledonia, you must partake in the customary ritual before entering tribal lands. This symbolic ceremony, conducted in the presence of the tribal chief, grants you access to the daily life of a Kanak tribe. Among the highlights of this tribal welcome, preparing bougna , the iconic dish, provides an intimate insight into Kanak culture —a must during your stay!

Relax on Fayaoué beach

Stretching as far as the eye can see, Fayaoué Beach boasts white sands and an unparalleled turquoise lagoon. Extending for a staggering 25 kilometres along the main island of Ouvéa, it offers opportunities for sunbathing, strolling, and swimming. Yet, the true highlight lies in the sunset, one of New Caledonia’s most breathtaking spectacles!

Marvel at Hanawa's Blue Hole

One of Ouvéa atoll’s hidden gems, the Hanawa Blue Hole is a destination worthy of exploration. Tucked within private property, this azure wonder is accessible for a small entrance fee. Follow a scenic path leading to the first water basin, surrounded by coral and lush vegetation. The blue hue is particularly striking and profound here. Underground galleries connect it to the sea, and further exploration leads to a second captivating hole amidst the scrubland.

Discover Anubet cave

With a local guide as your companion, follow a forested trail to reach this open cave. Along the way, you can observe the island’s rich flora and fauna, including Ouvéa’s renowned parakeet. The Anubet Cave , though deep, offers crystal-clear waters, inviting you to take a refreshing dip.

Visit the Ouvéa soap factory

Situated 6 kilometres north of Wadrilla, the Ouvéa coconut oil distillery produces approximately 200 tons of oil annually. This precious resource is used in crafting traditional Ouvéa soaps and holds significant economic importance for the island. During your stay, don’t miss the opportunity to tour the distillery and purchase some of Ouvéa’s cherished traditional soaps.

For those yearning for authentic experiences amidst a postcard-perfect backdrop, the Ouvéa atoll is an absolute treasure trove of landscapes. Located in the heart of the South Pacific, set sail for “the island closest to paradise”!

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New caledonia chiefs lodge complaint over ouvea yacht confrontation.

Customary authorities in New Caledonia have lodged a complaint after last week's confrontation with a luxury yacht in a World Heritage area off Ouvea in the Loyalty Islands province.

An Ouvea beach Photo: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Australian tourists were assaulted and the yacht was damaged by a group of local men, which the government of the southern province denounced as barbaric piracy.

However, the chiefs, environmental organisations and fishermen said the yacht's occupants failed to respect the rules applying to a protected marine zone by using professional fishing gear.

In a statement, they said their complaint was also directed at charter companies based in the southern province which operate in the Loyalty Islands without being given consent to do so.

It said in view of the false claims by the skipper that he was authorised to enter the zone they feel to be the victims in this affair.

There have been no arrests and while investigations are underway no charges have been laid.

• New Caledonia

Copyright © 2019 , Radio New Zealand

Related Stories

New caledonia yacht attack still probed.

There are more calls in New Caledonia to clarify the circumstances of last week's attack on a luxury yacht in a World Heritage area off Ouvea.

Concerns tourism jobs at risk after yacht attacked in New Caledonia

Tourism New Caledonia says hundreds of jobs are at risk over the reported attack on a yacht near Ouvea this week.

New Caledonia police investigate confrontation off Ouvea

Police in New Caledonia are investigating an incident off Ouvea three days ago in which armed men confronted a luxury yacht with foreign tourists.

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• Destination New Caledonia
• The Islands
• Ouvéa Guide
• How do I get there?
• More information

Ouvéa – known as Iaaï in the local language – stands out as one of the most beautiful atolls in the Pacific region. Spanning 25 kilometres of pristine white sandy beaches, boasting a UNESCO World Heritage lagoon, and featuring majestic coral cliffs, Ouvéa has rightfully earned its title as “the island closest to paradise.” Travellers in search of disconnection from the urban world will discover a serene way of life here, untouched by urbanisation, and have the chance to immerse themselves in authentic moments within the Kanak tribes. Whether you’re an aficionado of leisure or an outdoor adventurer, Ouvéa promises an unforgettable destination!

The most convenient way to reach Ouvéa from Nouméa is by taking an Air Calédonie flight from the domestic airport at Nouméa-Magenta. In just 40 minutes, you’ll arrive at Ouvéa-Ouloup aerodrome, located in the south-central part of the island. Upon arrival, you have several transportation options to reach your accommodation, including car or scooter rentals, shuttle services organised by your hotel, or private transport. Be sure to arrange your transportation in advance. Additionally, Air Loyauté offers inter-island flights to Lifou and Maré.

Why is Ouvéa Atoll affectionately referred to as “the island closest to Paradise”? This delightful nickname originates from the Japanese writer Katsura Morimura, who first visited the atoll in the 1970s. Enchanted by the island’s beauty and the warm hospitality of its residents, she used Ouvéa as the backdrop for her novel, “The Island Closest to Paradise.” The book narrates a love story between a young Japanese woman and a native of Ouvéa. Since the novel’s publication and its subsequent film adaptation, the Japanese continue to consider Ouvéa an ideal honeymoon destination.

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things to do in Ouvéa

Embark on an adventure to admire manta rays, turtles, and vibrant coral reefs amid the stunning coral rock setting of Les Pléiades du Sud and Les Pléiades du Nord, two groups of islets located to the south and north of Ouvéa. These two spots offer an ideal excursion with boat trips, walks, snorkelling , and picnics led by a local guide.

A must-visit attraction on Ouvéa atoll, the pont de Mouli is the sole crossing point between the island’s south and north. Pause on the footbridge for a picturesque photo, observe turtles and rays beneath your feet, and then descend to the stunning 2-kilometre-long Mouli beach, one of Ouvéa’s most beautiful beaches! After unwinding on the sandy shores, indulge in a cocktail with a view at Hôtel Paradis d’Ouvéa overlooking the lagoon.

For a moment of communion with nature, book a guided excursion to the astonishing Lékiny cliffs, characterised by their tree-covered formations and cavities. Your adventure commences with a foot-crossing over an inlet. During high tide, it’s advisable to bring a waterproof bag! This magnificent journey combines hiking amidst magnificent cliffs, exploring a cave , and snorkelling among the lagoon’s vibrant fish.

Fun fact: Manta rays can reach an impressive wingspan of 7 metres! Ouvéa atoll, along with Isle of Pines, is one of the prime locations for spotting these majestic creatures. Opt for a snorkelling trip or a nautical excursion in the Pleiades for an opportunity to witness them gracefully glide before your eyes!

The residents of the Loyalty Islands are eager to share their history and traditions with visitors. In Ouvéa, as in other parts of New Caledonia, customary protocol must be observed before entering customary land. This symbolic ritual , overseen by the tribal chief, unlocks the doors to the daily life of a Kanak tribe. Among the highlights of your tribal welcome, the preparation of bougna , the most emblematic dish, offers a special opportunity to exchange insights on Kanak daily life. An authentic experience that should not be missed during your stay!

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Reaching New Caledonia by sea

• Travel guide
• Arriving by boat

New Caledonia offers an enchanting maritime experience, boasting vast oceanic expanses, a stunning lagoon, well-protected bays, secure anchorages, secluded spots, consistent trade winds, and modern marinas. When arriving by boat, Nouméa serves as the primary port of entry for immigration formalities.

Embark on a cruise

Bring your own boat.

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Around ten cruise lines, including industry leaders like Royal Caribbean Cruise and Carnival Cruise Lines from Australia and New Zealand , make stops in New Caledonia. Typically, these liners disembark passengers in Nouméa between 7 am and 9 am, setting sail again around 5 pm. This allows ample time to explore Nouméa, offering activities such as lagoon snorkelling, city and bay tours, visits to major museums, and various water sports. The cruise terminal (ferry terminal) conveniently welcomes passengers in downtown Nouméa on Jules Ferry Quay. Here, you’ll find tourist service providers and some shops. Tourist buses and taxis provide transportation in the capital, including to nearby beaches and islets.

Before docking

As a vibrant South Pacific city, Nouméa offers a rewarding stopover experience. Yachtsmen should contact “Port Moselle” on VHF (Channel 67) or Port du Sud (24 47 77) for access to Nouméa. Upon arrival, each crew member must present a valid passport and visa, depending on nationality . Remember to display your yellow flag until all formalities are completed.

Visitor-Friendly Ports

• Port Moselle : Limited stay to 3 days in high season (May 15-December 15) and 6 days in low season. Caution is advised when approaching the bay at night, as many boats anchor there without anchor lights.
• Port du Sud : Visitors can stay for up to one month except in the event of a cyclone warning.

Find out more

Capitainerie de Port Moselle : [email protected] – +687 27 71 97 Direction des douanes : [email protected] – +687 26 53 85 Police aux frontières : [email protected] – +687 24 32 00 Find the yacht arrival formalities form to hand to Sivap agents during inspection Sivap : [email protected] – +687 78 26 81

Where to go with your boat?

• Stopover in Nouméa
• Stopover in the Isle of Pines
• Stopover in the Loyalty Islands
• Stopover around Grande Terre

Nouméa ‘s two harbours, Port Moselle and Port du Sud, provide sanitary facilities, water, electricity, laundry, and a service station. Port Moselle offers free wifi. Nearby, you can dine at restaurants serving French and Caledonian cuisine, shop in malls, or enjoy various activities, including diving. Nouméa also hosts numerous boat repair, deck fitting, spare parts, and equipment suppliers. Transit boats enjoy tax exemptions on spare parts for repair work.

For more information, refer to the “ Stopover guide ”

The Southern Province offers 120 moorings in the marine protected areas around Nouméa. Islet Maître, Islet Signal, and Islet Larégnère feature beautiful beaches, barbecue spots, and snorkelling. When mooring, approach the buoys slowly, facing into the wind or current, and be cautious of swimmers and other boats. Check the condition of the mooring line you are using. Before departure, consult the tide times to avoid getting stranded on an islet.

Find out more:

• Guide to the lagoon available on the Province Sud website
• New Caledonia nautical guide
• Download the free Tides NC app for tide times

Anchoring is only authorised in Kuto Bay . Before heading to Île des Pins, yachtsmen should contact the Gendarmerie and the Mairie de l’Île des Pins.

Gendarmerie de l’Île des Pins

• Tel. : +687 44 87 85
• Mail : [email protected]
• Opening hours : Monday to Saturday (7:30am-11:30am and 1:30pm-5:30pm), Sunday and public holidays (8:30am-11:30am and 2:30pm-5:30pm)

Mairie de l’Île des Pins

• Tel. : +687 46 11 03
• Mail : [email protected]
• Opening hours : Monday to Thursday (7am-11:30am and 12:30pm-4:30pm) and Friday (7am-11:30am and 12:30pm-3:30pm)

As part of a sustainable tourism initiative, a mooring area with connected buoys is now available in Kuto Bay on the Isle of Pines.

All you have to do is reserve a buoy on the Connect Kuto application to make mooring easier and more secure, and to benefit from additional services.

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Sailing to the Loyalty Islands requires contacting Wé Marina on Lifou. All sailings to Ouvéa, Lifou, or Maré now require validation .

• Tel: +687 45 10 62
• Mail: [email protected]  /  [email protected]
• Opening hours: 24/7
• VHF watch: Channel 67

If you wish to anchor outside the marina , please complete and send the anchorage application form below to the Marina de Wé 1 or 2 weeks before your departure.

• Download the form

Numerous anchoring areas are available. Once on site, a request for authorisation accompanied by a “greeting custom” must be submitted to the owner or chief of the tribe below:

• Xépénéhé : WAEHNYA Siwelë.
• Easo : BONUA Guytou, Tel: +687 45 11 11.
• Jokin : ATREA Konë, Tel: +687 96 68 96.
• Drueulu : QENENOJ Hulikoko, Tel: +687 80 58 76, see anchoring rules .

Anchoring is possible in the Tadine bay, but beware of the traffic zone for coasters (freight transport) and the Betico, which have priority. Please enquire after anchoring to arrange a custom . If there are no cruise liners on arrival, boaters can use the pontoon dedicated to cruise liners with their dinghy.

• Mairie de Maré : Tél.: +687 45 49 00.
• Antenne de la Province des Îles à Maré (DGSM): Tél.: +687 45 44 00.

Pending customary agreements, it is advisable to anchor in front of the Mouli chiefdom or the gendarmerie in Fayaoué. Once there, enquire about making a customary gesture to the owner or tribal chief.

• Mouli tribe : Mr DOUMAI Ambroise, Tel: +687 96 60 41.
• Fayaoué : Gendarmerie: Tel: +687 45 53 10. Antenne de la Province des Îles (DGSO): Tél.: +687 45 52 50.

The Great South offers vast landscapes of red earth, mining scrub, and rivers. Safe anchorages between the capital and the South lagoon are found in Prony Bay , Port Boisé , and Île Ouen . This region is also known for humpback whale sightings between mid-July and mid-September.

The leeward West Coast features wide-open spaces with niaouli tree savannahs, mangroves, stockmen, cattle, and rodeos. Numerous safe anchorages allow you to enjoy wild bays and islets, including Ténia islet , Saint-Vincent Bay , Croissant Bay , and Koumac.

The windward East Coast offers a change of scenery and authenticity with Melanesian tribes and lush valleys. Sheltered anchorages along this coast, such as Hienghène or Port Bouquet , are ideal for stopovers.

The Grand Lagon Nord is a UNESCO World Heritage site, wild and exotic. It provides a sense of the end of the world, both on land and at sea. Anchorages like Chasseloup Bay, Bélep Island, Boat Pass, and Neba await your visit.

Before leaving

Departure formalities must be completed within 24 hours before departure, and by Friday at the latest for boats leaving the Territory over the weekend. The boat’s papers and passports should be presented to:

• Customs (using the form provided upon arrival)
• The immigration department
• The Port Autonome harbour master’s office, which issues the clearance

Vessels leaving Nouméa are no longer authorised to call on the Territory of New Caledonia, including the Isle of Pines and the Loyalty Islands.

The best time to sail in New Caledonia is during the cool season , from late April to mid-November , when trade winds prevail, allowing for pleasant sailing conditions. From December to April, the cyclone season makes sailing less favourable.

New Caledonia is equipped with well-appointed shipyards , and service providers are proficient in various fields. You can find a directory of service providers for repairs in your port of call booklet.

Noumea Yacht Services , located on the waterfront of the main port and marina facilities, offers comprehensive services for yachts, superyachts, and mega yachts. Their staff is fluent in English, French, and Spanish, providing services such as customs clearance, administrative formalities, caretaking, repairs, recruitment of onboard personnel, provisioning, organisation of activities and visits, on-site transfers, and transport services, among others.

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First look: 60m O'Eva pictured following six-month refit

The 60-metre O'Eva has been pictured for the first time following a major refit at Golden Yachts in Greece. Initially launched by French yard CMN in 2009, the yacht went by the names Cloud 9 and Ice Angel , and formerly had a navy blue hull like her sistership Slipstream .  

The six-month refit project began at the end of 2022 and saw a number of modifications to both her interior and exterior. The yacht's exterior is now white and grey, and her interior has been revamped in a collaboration between Dimitra Agapitou and Studio Massari , both of which worked on the 88-metre Golden Yachts flagship Project X .

The design team aimed to preserve the yacht's original Winch Design, which was later updated under new ownership by Stirling & Co, while using the refit opportunity to "transform an existing space into something completely new and surprising". 

“Compared to the rest of the 60-metre yachts in the market, the volume of interior and exterior areas is also quite impressive. The accommodation areas are comfortable, not only for the guests on board, but there has been a serious ergonomic study also for the crew quarters and movement throughout the boat,” explained project manager and captain George Mousseris.

Working across a GT of around 1076,  the design team has replaced elements like grey plaster, inox metal and dark wooden floors with lighter, brighter materials that contribute to a more modern look and feel. The main saloon has a mahogany and amber theme that makes the space warm and comfortable, while the skylounge features a contrasting white and blue colour palette with a circular seating space and a separate dining area. 

The sundeck is well-appointed, with a Jacuzzi bordered by sunpads, bar and a formal dining table for up to 12. Aft and forward of the sundeck is a sunpad spread and the space also benefits from a head, small spa room and barbecue, while sliding glass panels protect the central area from inclement weather.

O'Eva can accommodate up to 12 guests in seven cabins with an optional additional cabin that also functions as a gym. Crew quarters are for 12. 

Golden Yachts has recently launched its 77.7-metre O'Rea , and has a 32.9-metre new build called O'Riana also in the works. O'Eva will rejoin the charter fleet with Atalanta Golden Yachts .

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Neu-Samara Mennonite Settlement (Samara Oblast, Russia)

Neu-Samara ( Pleshanov ) was a Mennonite settlement in the northern part of the fertile section of Samara , Russia , about 125 miles (210 km) east of the city by the same name. It was founded in 1890 as a daughter settlement of Molotschna and embraced 59,400 acres of land. In 1926 it numbered 3,071 Mennonite and 66 non-Mennonite inhabitants, who lived in twelve villages and five single farms.

See also Pleshanov .

Bibliography

Hege, Christian and Christian Neff. Mennonitisches Lexikon, 4 vols. Frankfurt & Weierhof: Hege; Karlsruhe: Schneider, 1913-1967: v. III, 219.

Cite This Article

, . "Neu-Samara Mennonite Settlement (Samara Oblast, Russia)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online . 1957. Web. 28 Sep 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Neu-Samara_Mennonite_Settlement_(Samara_Oblast,_Russia)&oldid=135008 .

, . (1957). Neu-Samara Mennonite Settlement (Samara Oblast, Russia). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online . Retrieved 28 September 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Neu-Samara_Mennonite_Settlement_(Samara_Oblast,_Russia)&oldid=135008 .

Adapted by permission of Herald Press , Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia , Vol. 3, p. 856; vol. 4, p. 1147. All rights reserved.

©1996-2024 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.

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New 90m mega yacht NOUVEAU concept by Andy Waugh

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Written by Zuzana Bednarova

The breath-taking 90m mega yacht NOUVEAU represents the all-new concept, superbly penned by British designer, Andy Waugh. After having worked with prominent UK design firms, Andy has launched his own brand this year.

New 90m superyacht NOUVEAU concept by Andy Waugh - Image credit to Andy Waugh

As stated on the website of Andy Waugh: Superyacht NOUVEAU is a concept that pushes the boundaries of the yacht aesthetic to an extreme degree made possible by sophisticated surface manipulation and careful management of three dimensional space. Inspired by the works of the classical exponents of the Art Nouveau style including Alphonse Mucha and Antoni Gaudi the design encapsulates the key principles of dynamism and organic form in an innovative and audacious manner.

The tense, diagonal lines create drama whilst concealing a surprisingly spacious interior, main deck head clearance being 2.7m leaving incredible possibilities for equally exciting interior spaces.

The bridge deck is elevated above a character filled owners deck that features a full width suite with balconies on both sides harmoniously aligned with the circular profile graphics and the main deck entrance below. The sweeping, tentacle like bulwark adds to the drama of the exterior styling whilst providing an enhanced sense of light, space and connection to the environment for the interior. Sunbathing and informal lounging areas make up the owners aft deck which is linked to the decks above and below by spiral staircases and a water feature which runs from the sun-deck Spa Pool, across the bridge and owners decks and then down via a water-slide into the main deck pool. The purpose of this feature is to enhance the feeling of being at one with nature and the seascape.

A profile view of the NOUVEAU yacht design emphasises the concentric, circular graphic which converges on the main deck entrance and gives an impressive sense of scale and theatre when boarding. Likewise if arriving from astern where the bold, organic superstructure appears to sprout and grow from the swimming platform.

Forward on main deck there are twin VIP cabins with fold down balconies while dining and lounging space is to the aft and leads out onto an intimate deck with relaxed seating and an infinity pool. An owners office is situated aft of the wheelhouse and crew areas on the bridge deck with deck space for formal, al fresco dining. The intimate sun deck above provides a secluded retreat from the other social areas on board and a perfect place for 360 degree viewing the scenery.

Luxury yacht NOUVEAU is aimed at the more modern client with a relatively small entourage who prefers to define themselves by their style and taste in design rather than by sheer size. Practicality and efficient use of space were not primary concerns for the concept but despite its radical looks it has the potential to be a fully functioning yacht for owner and crew alike.

Please contact CharterWorld - the luxury yacht charter specialist - for more on superyacht news item "New 90m mega yacht NOUVEAU concept by Andy Waugh".

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