New Zealand's Nuclear-free Zone - Rainbow Warrior Affair

Rainbow Warrior Affair

Greenpeace continued an unrelenting protest offensive in French Polynesia until 1996. The Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior was sunk by the French foreign intelligence agency (DGSE) while docked in Auckland harbour, New Zealand, on 10 July 1985.

It is often speculated that the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior was an act of revenge against Greenpeace and New Zealanders themselves for their successful campaigns to enforce a nuclear weapons test ban at Mururoa. When the French DGSE agents Commander Alain Mafart and Captain Dominique Prieur were captured in New Zealand and eventually sentenced to 10 years prison for their roles in sabotage of the Rainbow Warrior and manslaughter of Fernando Pereira, the French government threatened New Zealand with trade sanctions to the European Union if the pair were not released.

From a Pacific perspective, the military attack on the Rainbow Warrior only served to consolidate New Zealand's and the Pacific communities nuclear free zone ambitions. (Treaty of Rarotonga - South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty). The attack served to further isolate the French in that part of the world, which resulted in strong anti-French political campaigns for independence in Tahiti (see French Polynesian legislative election, 2004) and New Caledonia (see Politics of New Caledonia).