diego.blogger.de

Auckland, New Zeeland, 10th of July 1985: due to two bombs attached to its hull, the Greenpeace ship “Rainbow Warrior” sunk immediately. The Portuguese photographer and father of two kids tried to save his equipment after the first explosion and died when the second occurred. I read an article (Geo 07, 2005) about the happenings and think, nowadays there are no doubts that the French external security agency is responsible for the operation “satanic”. It is a shame that two terrorists caught by New Zeeland’s police were released from prison after a couple of years, although they went to court and got ten years. The reason was economic pressure from France (I don’t know how good the relation between both countries is today). Both agenets receive awards/decorations. One of them, D. Prieur, declares she was not a terrorist, but captain/officer of the French army and she followed the orders. All this is related to tests of nuclear bombs in the Pacific. I remember that in 1995 under Chirac further tests could be stopped because of massive protest and the boycott of French products.
This entry is certainly not supposed to be France bashing. Any country should avoid such “operations”. (i) Finally, after the whole scandal about the Rainbow Warrior became public, many people supported the organization. Thus, probably the attack caused the opposite of what was intended. (ii) Originally, in the context of the French Revolution (sorry, again), the term terror was coined to be directed from the government to the people. Today, the common sense understanding is the opposite. (iii) It shows which role economic power plays, from both, a bad side and a good one.