Today in Labor History July 10, 1985: French intelligence committed an act of piracy and state terrorism by blowing up the Rainbow Warrior, flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, in the Port of Auckland, New Zealand. The ship was on its way to protest a French nuclear test in Moruroa. The attack killed Fernando Pereira, a photographer, who drowned as a result. France had been doing nuclear testing on Mururoa Atoll since 1966, and had intended to continue, despite the 1985 Treaty of Rarotonga, signed by Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and other South Pacific nations, declaring the region a nuclear-free zone. The Rainbow Warrior had been active in supporting anti-whaling, anti-seal hunting, anti-nuclear testing and anti-nuclear waste dumping campaigns during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
New Zealand Police captured and charged two French agents with arson, conspiracy and murder. They were sentenced to ten years in New Zealand prison. However, due to pressures from the French government, they only spent two years imprisoned on the French Polynesian island of Hao before being released. In 1987, France paid $8 million to Greenpeace in damages, which helped finance another ship, but only after considerable international pressure. Most Western leaders refused to condemn the attack.
Nuclear contamination in the South Pacific is extensive. It is the result of nuclear testing by the U.S. (primarily in the Marhsall Islands, including Bikini Atoll), UK (Monte Bello Island, Australia), and France (French Polynesia) from 1946 until 1996. As a result, thousands of local indigenous populations have suffered radiation poisoning; increased rates of cancer; contaminated food supplies; forced displacement; increased rates of infertility, miscarriages, and congenital malformations; and, of course, psychological trauma. In at least one case, the U.S. completely obliterated a previously inhabited island. The U.S. conducted 105 atmospheric and underwater tests in the Marshall Islands from 1946-1962 for a total yield of 210 megatons. Castle Bravo (1954) was the largest single test. It spread fallout across several islands, include some that were currently inhabited. Residents weren’t warned or evacuated ahead of time.
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