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In 1985, Greenpeace coordinated a New Zealand-based flotilla headed
by its flagship, the Rainbow Warrior to protest nuclear testing in the Pacific
by the French. However, before the fleet could set sail from Auckland, the French
secret service sabotaged the Rainbow Warrior, detonating two bombs below the waterline.
As rescuers recovered the body of Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira, two
French secret service agents posing as tourists were arrested. Flatly denying
all knowledge at first, the French government was finally forced to admit to what
the then Prime Minister of New Zealand called "a sordid act of international state-backed
terrorism."
The two captured agents were sentenced to 10 years in jail, but France used all
its international muscle to have them serve their sentence on a French Pacific
island; they both served less than two years before being honored and returning
to France.
In 1995, in worldwide opprobrium France announced a further series of tests. Greenpeace
duly dispatched the Rainbow Warrior II, which was impounded by the French navy
on the 10th anniversary of the sinking of the original Rainbow Warrior. In early
1996 the French finally agreed to stop nuclear testing in the Pacific, pacing
the way for improved diplomatic relations between the French and New Zealand,
and the following year the two foreign ministers met for the first time since
the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior some 11 years early.
Today, the wreck lies off the coast of Motutapere Island, in the Cavalli Islands,
a site which can be dived from Matauri Bay in Northland New Zealand.
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