Open sea sinking plot for Warrior

Press, 11 February 1986, Page 2

Open sea sinking plot for Warrior

NZPA-AP London France originally planned to blow up the Rainbow Warrior at sea rather than destroy the Greenpeace flagship at dockside, as it did, when most of the crew was ashore in Auckland, says the “Sunday Times.” The newspaper said an investigation by its journalists also established that the sabotage last July that killed a Greenpeace photographer was financed by a special fund administered from the offices of President Francois Mitterrand and the French Prime Minister, Mr Laurent Fabius. The Rainbow Warrior was to have led an armada of small boats on an anti-nuclear protest last southern winter to Muroroa Atoll in the South Pacific, where France was planning nuclear tests.

The French Government has admitted the bombs that sank the ship in Auckland Harbour on July 10, 1985, were planted by French secret agents. Two agents were

convicted of the sabotage and are serving 10-year jail terms in New Zealand. Three others are being sought.

In the international furore over the bombing, the French Defence Minister, Mr Charles Hernu, resigned and the Intelligence chief, Admiral Pierre Lacoste, was sacked.

The “Sunday Times” said Admiral Henri Fages, who was in charge of the nuclear tests, had tried to persuade Admiral Lacoste to take action against Greenpeace. It said Admiral Fages went to Mr Hernu who ordered Admiral Lacoste to draw up a plan of action. Admiral Lacoste argued there was not enough money for the operation and was told to get the funds from Mr Mitterrand’s private office, the newspaper said.

The “Sunday Times” said this was agreed by General Jean Saulnier, now the President’s military chief of staff, and passed to Mr Fabius’s office for countersign-

A French Government report last year said General Saulnier, then Mr Mitterrand’s personal military adviser, had authorised the funding.

Mr Hernu has acknowledged ordering a "surveillance mission” on Greenpeace, and said his subordinates lied to him. The “Sunday Times” said Admiral Lacoste favoured stopping the ship as it entered the test area, but that Jean-Francois Dubos, Mr Hernu’s top adviser, proposed to “neutralise” what was seen as the Greenpeace threat, once and for all.

It said Mr Dubos wanted bombs planted in the hull of the Rainbow Warrior and detonated once it was at sea, eliminating any evidence of French involvement. Admiral Lacoste protested against the plan, fearing the deaths of 15 people from countries friendly to France, and serious damage to France if the truth came out, the “Sunday Times” said. It said Mr Hernu then changed the Dubos plan.