He accused the coalition government of being “too timid” and “afraid of offending President Donald Trump” to make a stand on the nuclear issue.
However, a spokesperson for New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters told RNZ Pacific that New Zealand’s “overarching priority . . . is to work with Pacific partners to achieve a secure, stable, and prosperous region that preserves Pacific sovereignty and agency”.
The spokesperson said that through its foreign policy “reset”, New Zealand was committed to “comprehensive relationships” with Pacific Island countries.
“New Zealand’s identity, prosperity and security are intertwined with the Pacific through deep cultural, people, historical, security, and economic linkages.”
Pacific ‘increasingly contested’ The spokesperson said that the Pacific was becoming increasingly contested and complex.
“New Zealand has been clear with all of our partners that it is important that engagement in the Pacific takes place in a manner which advances Pacific priorities, is consistent with established regional practices, and supportive of Pacific regional institutions.”
They added that New Zealand’s main focus remained on the Pacific, “where we will be working with partners including the United States, Australia, Japan and in Europe to more intensively leverage greater support for the region.
“We will maintain the high tempo of political engagement across the Pacific to ensure alignment between our programme and New Zealand and partner priorities. And we will work more strategically with Pacific Governments to strengthen their systems, so they can better deliver the services their people need,” the spokesperson said.
The cover of the latest edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior. Image: Little Island Press
However, former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, writing in the prologue of Dr Robie’s book, said: “New Zealand needs to re-emphasise the principles and values which drove its nuclear-free legislation and its advocacy for a nuclear-free South Pacific and global nuclear disarmament.”
Dr Robie added that looking back 40 years to the 1980s, there was a strong sense of pride in being from Aotearoa, the small country which set an example around the world.
“We took on . . . the nuclear powers,” Dr Robie said.
“And the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was symbolic of that struggle, in a way, but it was a struggle that most New Zealanders felt a part of, and we were very proud of that [anti-nuclear] role that we took.
“Over the years, it has sort of been forgotten”.
‘Look at history’ France conducted 193 nuclear tests over three decades until 1996 in French Polynesia.
Until 2009, France claimed that its tests were “clean” and caused no harm, but in 2010, under the stewardship of Defence Minister Herve Morin, a compensation law was passed.
From 1946 to 1962, 67 nuclear bombs were detonated in the Marshall Islands by the US.
The 1 March 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, the largest nuclear weapon ever exploded by the United States, left a legacy of fallout and radiation contamination that continues to this day. Image: Marshall Islands Journal
In 2024, then-US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell, while responding to a question from RNZ Pacific about America’s nuclear legacy, said: “Washington has attempted to address it constructively with massive resources and a sustained commitment.”
However, Dr Robie said that was not good enough and labelled the destruction left behind by the US, and France, as “outrageous”.
“It is political speak; politicians trying to cover their backs and so on. If you look at history, [the response] is nowhere near good enough, both by the US and the French.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
He accused the coalition government of being “too timid” and “afraid of offending President Donald Trump” to make a stand on the nuclear issue.
However, a spokesperson for New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters told RNZ Pacific that New Zealand’s “overarching priority . . . is to work with Pacific partners to achieve a secure, stable, and prosperous region that preserves Pacific sovereignty and agency”.
The spokesperson said that through its foreign policy “reset”, New Zealand was committed to “comprehensive relationships” with Pacific Island countries.
“New Zealand’s identity, prosperity and security are intertwined with the Pacific through deep cultural, people, historical, security, and economic linkages.”
Pacific ‘increasingly contested’ The spokesperson said that the Pacific was becoming increasingly contested and complex.
“New Zealand has been clear with all of our partners that it is important that engagement in the Pacific takes place in a manner which advances Pacific priorities, is consistent with established regional practices, and supportive of Pacific regional institutions.”
They added that New Zealand’s main focus remained on the Pacific, “where we will be working with partners including the United States, Australia, Japan and in Europe to more intensively leverage greater support for the region.
“We will maintain the high tempo of political engagement across the Pacific to ensure alignment between our programme and New Zealand and partner priorities. And we will work more strategically with Pacific Governments to strengthen their systems, so they can better deliver the services their people need,” the spokesperson said.
The cover of the latest edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior. Image: Little Island Press
However, former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, writing in the prologue of Dr Robie’s book, said: “New Zealand needs to re-emphasise the principles and values which drove its nuclear-free legislation and its advocacy for a nuclear-free South Pacific and global nuclear disarmament.”
Dr Robie added that looking back 40 years to the 1980s, there was a strong sense of pride in being from Aotearoa, the small country which set an example around the world.
“We took on . . . the nuclear powers,” Dr Robie said.
“And the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was symbolic of that struggle, in a way, but it was a struggle that most New Zealanders felt a part of, and we were very proud of that [anti-nuclear] role that we took.
“Over the years, it has sort of been forgotten”.
‘Look at history’ France conducted 193 nuclear tests over three decades until 1996 in French Polynesia.
Until 2009, France claimed that its tests were “clean” and caused no harm, but in 2010, under the stewardship of Defence Minister Herve Morin, a compensation law was passed.
From 1946 to 1962, 67 nuclear bombs were detonated in the Marshall Islands by the US.
The 1 March 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, the largest nuclear weapon ever exploded by the United States, left a legacy of fallout and radiation contamination that continues to this day. Image: Marshall Islands Journal
In 2024, then-US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell, while responding to a question from RNZ Pacific about America’s nuclear legacy, said: “Washington has attempted to address it constructively with massive resources and a sustained commitment.”
However, Dr Robie said that was not good enough and labelled the destruction left behind by the US, and France, as “outrageous”.
“It is political speak; politicians trying to cover their backs and so on. If you look at history, [the response] is nowhere near good enough, both by the US and the French.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A journalist who was on the Rainbow Warrior voyage to Rongelap last night condemned France for its “callous” attack of an environmental ship, saying “we haven’t forgotten, or forgiven this outrage”.
David Robie, the author of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, said at the launch that the consequences of almost 300 US and French nuclear tests – many of them “dirty bombs” — were still impacting on indigenous Pacific peoples 40 years after the bombing of the ship.
French saboteurs had killed “our shipmate Fernando Pereira” on 10 July 1985 in what the New Zealand prime minister at the time, David Lange, called a “sordid act of international state-backed terrorism”.
Although relations with France had perhaps mellowed over time, four decades ago there was a lot of hostility towards the country, Dr Robie said.
“And that act of mindless sabotage still rankles very deeply in our psyche,” he said at the launch in Auckland Central’s Ellen Melville Centre on the anniversary of July 10.
About 100 people gathered in the centre’s Pioneer Women’s Hall for the book launch as Dr Robie reflected on the case of state terrorism after Greenpeace earlier in the day held a memorial ceremony on board Rainbow Warrior III.
“One of the celebrated French newspapers, Le Monde, played a critical role in the investigation into the Rainbow Warrior affair — what I brand as ‘Blundergate’, in view of all the follies of the bumbling DGSE spy team,” he said.
Plantu cartoon “And one of the cartoons in that newspaper, by Plantu, who is a sort of French equivalent to Michael Leunig, caught my eye.
“You will notice it in the background slide show behind me. It shows François Mitterrand, the president of the French republic at the time, dressed in a frogman’s wetsuit lecturing to school children during a history lesson.
“President Mitterrand says, in French, ‘At that time, only presidents had the right to carry out terrorism!’
Tahitian advocate Ena Manurevia . . . the background Plantu cartoon is the one mentioned by the author. Image: Asia Pacific Report
He noticed that in the Mitterrand cartoon there was a “classmate” sitting in the back of the room with a moustache. This was none other than Edwy Plenel, the police reporter for Le Monde at the time, who scooped the world with hard evidence of Mitterrand and the French government’s role at the highest level in the Rainbow Warrior sabotage.
Dr Robie said that Plenel now published the investigative website Mediapart, which had played a key role in 2015 revealing the identity of the bomber that night, “the man who had planted the limpet mines on the Rainbow Warrior — sinking a peace and environmental ship, and killing Fernando Pereira.”
Jean-Luc Kister, a retired French colonel and DGSE secret agent, had confessed to his role and “apologised”, claiming the sabotage operation was “disproportionate and a mistake”.
“Was he sincere? Was it a genuine attempt to come to terms with his conscience. Who knows?” Dr Robie said, adding that he was unconvinced.
Hilari Anderson (right on stage), one of the speakers, with Del Abcede and MC Antony Phillips (obscured) . . . the background image shows Helen Clark meeting Fernando Pereira’s daughter Marelle in 2005. Image: Greenpeace
French perspective Dr Robie said he had asked Plenel for his reflections from a French perspective 40 years on. Plenel cited three main take ways.
“First, the vital necessity of independent journalism. Independent of all powers, whether state, economic or ideological. Journalism that serves the public interest, the right to know, and factual truths.
“Impactful journalism whose revelations restore confidence in democracy, in the possibility of improving it, and in the usefulness of counterbalancing powers, particularly journalism.”
Secondly, this attack had been carried out by France in an “allied country”, New Zealand, against a civil society organisation. This demonstrated that “the thirst for power is a downfall that leads nations astray when they succumb to it.
“Nuclear weapons epitomise this madness, this catastrophe of power.”
Eyes of Fire 10 years ago . . . same author, same publisher. Video: Pacific Media Centre
Finally, Plenel expressed the “infinite sadness” for a French citizen that after his revelations in Le Monde — which led to the resignations of the defence minister and the head of the secret services — nothing else happened.
“Nothing at all. No parliamentary inquiry, no questioning of François Mitterrand about his responsibility, no institutional reform of the absolute power of the president in a French republic that is, in reality, an elective monarchy.”
‘Elective monarchy’ trend Dr Robie compared the French outcome with the rapid trend in US today, “a president who thinks he is a monarch, a king – another elective monarchy.”
He also bemoaned that “catastrophe of power” that “reigns everywhere today – from the horrendous Israeli genocide in Gaza to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, from Trump to Putin to Netanyahu, and so many others.”
The continuous Gaza massacres were a shameful indictment of the West that had allowed it to happen for more than 21 months.
Dr Robie thanked many collaborators for their help and support, including drama teacher Hilari Anderson, an original crew member of the Rainbow Warrior, and photographer John Miller, “who have been with me all the way on this waka journey”.
He thanked his wife, Del, and family members for their unstinting “patience and support”, and also publisher Tony Murrow of Little Island Press.
Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior . . . published 10 July 2025. Image: David Robie/Little Island Press
Launching the book, Greenpeace Aotearoa programme director Niamh O’Flynn said one thing that had stood out for her was how the legacy of the Rainbow Warrior had continued despite the attempt by the French government to shut it down 40 years ago.
“We said then that ‘you can’t sink a rainbow’, and we went on to prove it.
“When the Rainbow Warrior was bombed in Auckland harbour, it was getting ready to set sail to Moruroa Atoll, to enter the test exclusion zone and confront French nuclear testing head-on.”
So threatened The French government had felt so threatened by that action that it had engaged in a state-sanctioned terror attack to prevent the mission from going ahead.
“But we rebuilt, and the Rainbow Warrior II carried on with that mission, travelling to Moruroa three times before the French finally stopped nuclear testing in the Pacific.
“That spirit and tenacity is what makes Greenpeace and what makes the Rainbow Warrior so special to everyone who has sailed on her,” she said.
“It was the final voyage of the Rainbow Warrior to Rongelap before the bombing that is the focus of David Robie’s book, and in many ways, it was an incredibly unique experience for Greenpeace — not just here in Aotearoa, but internationally.
“And of course David was a key part in that.”
O’Flynn said that as someone who had not even been born yet when the Rainbow Warrior was bombed, “I am so grateful that the generation of nuclear-free activists took the time to pass on their knowledge and to build our organisation into what it is today.
“Just as David has by writing down his story and leaving us with such a rich legacy.”
Greenpeace Aotearoa programme director Niamh O’Flynn . . . “That spirit and tenacity is what makes Greenpeace and what makes the Rainbow Warrior so special to everyone who has sailed on her.” Image: APR
Other speakers Among other speakers at the book launch were teacher Hilari Anderson, publisher Tony Murrow of Little Island Press, Ena Manuireva, a Mangarevian scholar and cultural adviser, and MC Antony Phillips of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.
Anderson spoke of the Warrior’s early campaigns and acknowledged the crews of 1978 and 1985.
“I have been reflecting what these first and last crews of the original Rainbow Warrior had in common, realising that both gave their collective, mostly youthful energy — to transformation.
“This has involved the bonding of crews by working hands-on together. Touching surfaces, by hammer and paint, created a physical connection to this beloved boat.”
She paid special tribute to two powerful women, Denise Bell, who tracked down the marine research vessel in Aberdeen that became the Rainbow Warrior, and the indomitable Susi Newborn, who “contributed to naming the ship and mustering a crew”.
Manuireva spoke about his nuclear colonial experience and that of his family as natives of Mangareva atoll, about 400 km from Muroroa atoll, where France conducted most of its 30 years of tests ending in 1995.
He also spoke of Tahitian leader Oscar Temaru’s pioneering role in the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement, and played haunting Tahitian songs on his guitar.
On the last voyage of the Rainbow Warrior prior to its sinking by French secret agents in Auckland harbour on 10 July 1985 the ship had evacuated the entire population of 320 from Rongelap in the Marshall Islands.
After conducting dozens of above-ground nuclear explosions, the US government had left the population in conditions that suggested the islanders were being used as guinea pigs to gain knowledge of the effects of radiation.
Cancers, birth defects, and genetic damage ripped through the population; their former fisheries and land are contaminated to this day.
Denied adequate support from the US – they turned to Greenpeace with an SOS: help us leave our ancestral homeland; it is killing our people. The Rainbow Warrior answered the call.
Human lab rats or our brothers and sisters? Dr Merrill Eisenbud, a physicist in the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) famously said in 1956 of the Marshall Islanders: “While it is true that these people do not live, I might say, the way Westerners do, civilised people, it is nevertheless also true that they are more like us than the mice.”
Dr Eisenbud also opined that exposure “would provide valuable information on the effects of radiation on human beings.” That research continues to this day.
A half century of testing nuclear bombs Within a year of dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US moved part of its test programme to the central Pacific. Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands was used for atmospheric explosions from 1946 with scant regard for the indigenous population.
In 1954, the Castle Bravo test exploded a 15-megaton bomb — one thousand times more deadly than the one dropped on Hiroshima. As a result, the population of Rongelap were exposed to 200 roentgens of radiation, considered life-threatening without medical intervention. And it was.
Part of the Marshall Islands, with Bikini Atoll and Rongelap in the top left. Image: www.solidarity.co.nz
Total US tests equaled more than 7000 Hiroshimas. The Clinton administration released the aptly-named Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE), report in January 1994 in which it acknowledged:
“What followed was a program by the US government — initially the Navy and then the AEC and its successor agencies — to provide medical care for the exposed population, while at the same time trying to learn as much as possible about the long-term biological effects of radiation exposure. The dual purpose of what is now a DOE medical program has led to a view by the Marshallese that they were being used as ‘guinea pigs’ in a ‘radiation experiment’.
This impression was reinforced by the fact that the islanders were deliberately left in place and then evacuated, having been heavily radiated. Three years later they were told it was “safe to return” despite the lead scientist calling Rongelap “by far the most contaminated place in the world”.
Significant compensation paid by the US to the Marshall Islands has proven inadequate given the scale of the contamination. To some degree, the US has also used money to achieve capture of elite interest groups and secure ongoing control of the islands.
Entrusted to the US, the Marshall Islanders were treated like the civilians of Nagasaki The US took the Marshall Islands from Japan in 1944. The only “right” it has to be there was granted by the United Nations which in 1947 established the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, to be administered by the United States.
What followed was an abuse of trust worse than rapists at a state care facility. Using the very powers entrusted to it to protect the Marshallese, the US instead used the islands as a nuclear laboratory — violating both the letter and spirit of international law.
Fellow white-dominated countries like Australia and New Zealand couldn’t have cared less and let the indigenous people be irradiated for decades.
The betrayal of trust by the US was comprehensive and remains so to this day:
Under Article 76 of the UN Charter, all trusteeship agreements carried obligations. The administering power was required to:
Promote the political, economic, social, and educational advancement of the people
Protect the rights and well-being of the inhabitants
Help them advance toward self-government or independence.
Under Article VI, the United States solemnly pledged to “Protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources.” Very similar to sentiments in New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi. Within a few years the Americans were exploding the biggest nuclear bombs in history over the islands.
Within a year of the US assuming trusteeship of the islands, another pillar of international law came into effect: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) — which affirms the inherent dignity and equal rights of all humans. Exposing colonised peoples to extreme radiation for weapons testing is a racist affront to this.
America has a long history of making treaties and fine speeches and then exploiting indigenous peoples. Last year, I had the sobering experience of reading American military historian Peter Cozzens’ The Earth is Weeping, a history of the “Indian wars” for the American West.
The past is not dead: the Marshall Islands are a hive of bases, laboratories and missile testing; Americans are also incredibly busy attacking the population in Gaza today.
Eyes of Fire – the last voyage of the Rainbow Warrior Had the French not sunk the Rainbow Warrior after it reached Auckland from the Rongelap evacuation, it would have led a flotilla to protest nuclear testing at Moruroa in French Polynesia. So the bookends of this article are the abuse of defenceless people in the charge of one nuclear power — the US — and the abuse of New Zealand and the peoples of French Polynesia by another nuclear power — France.
Senator Jeton Anjain (left) of Rongelap and Greenpeace campaign coordinator Steve Sawyer on board the Rainbow Warrior . . . challenging the abuse of defenceless people under the charge of one nuclear power. Image: David Robie/Eyes of Fire
This incredible story, and much more, is the subject of David Robie’s outstanding book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, published by Little Island Press, which has been relaunched to mark the 40th anniversary of the French terrorist attack.
A new prologue by former prime minister Helen Clark and a preface by Greenpeace’s Bunny McDiarmid, along with an extensive postscript which bring us up to the present day, underline why the past is not dead; it’s with us right now.
Between them, France and the US have exploded more than 300 nuclear bombs in the Pacific. Few people are told this; few people know this.
Today, a matrix of issues combine — the ongoing effects of nuclear contamination, sea rise imperilling Pacific nations, colonialism still posing immense challenges to people in the Marshall Islands, Kanaky New Caledonia and in many parts of our region.
Unsung heroes Our media never ceases to share the pronouncements of European leaders and news from the US and Europe but the leaders and issues of the Pacific are seldom heard. The heroes of the antinuclear movement should be household names in Australia and New Zealand.
Vanuatu’s great leader Father Walter Lini; Oscar Temaru, Mayor, later President of French Polynesia; Senator Jeton Anjain, Darlene Keju-Johnson and so many others.
Do we know them? Have we heard their voices?
Jobod Silk, climate activist, said in a speech welcoming the Rainbow Warrior III to Majuro earlier this year: “Our crusade for nuclear justice intertwines with our fight against the tides.”
Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific . . . the Rainbow Warrior taking on board Rongelap islanders ready for their first of four relocation voyages to Mejatto island. Image: David Robie/Eyes of Fire
Former Tuvalu PM Enele Sapoaga castigated Australia for the AUKUS submarine deal which he said “was crafted in secret by former Prime Minister Scott Morrison with no public discussion.”
He challenged the bigger regional powers, particularly Australia and New Zealand, to remember that the existential threat faced by Pacific nations comes first from climate change, and reminded New Zealanders of the commitment to keeping the South Pacific nuclear-free.
Hinamoeura Cross, a Tahitian anti-nuclear activist and politician, said in a 2019 UN speech: “Today, the damage is done. My people are sick. For 30 years we were the mice in France’s laboratory.”
Until we learn their stories and know their names as well as we know those of Marco Rubio or Keir Starmer, we will remain strangers in our own lands.
The Pacific owes them, along with the people of Greenpeace, a huge debt. They put their bodies on the line to stop the aggressors. Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira, killed by the French in 1985, was just one of many victims, one of many heroes.
A great way to honour the sacrifice of those who stood up for justice, who stood for peace and a nuclear-free Pacific, and who honoured our own national identity would be to buy David Robie’s excellent book.
You cannot sink a rainbow.
Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira being welcomed to Rongelap Atoll by a villager in May 1985 barely two months before he was killed by French secret agents during the sabotage of the Rainbow Warrior. Image: David Robie/Eyes of Fire
Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark has warned the country needs to maintain its nuclear-free policy as a “fundamental tenet” of its independent foreign policy in the face of gathering global storm clouds.
Writing in a new book being published next week, she says “nuclear war is an existential threat to humanity. Far from receding, the threat of use of nuclear weapons is ever present.
Writing before the US surprise attack with B-2 stealth bombers and “bunker-buster” bombs on three Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22, Clark says “the Middle East is a tinder box with the failure of the Iran nuclear deal and with Israel widely believed to possess nuclear weapons”.
The Doomsday Clock references the Ukraine war theatre where “use of nuclear weapons has been floated by Russia”.
Also, the arms control architecture for Europe is unravelling, leaving the continent much less secure. India and Pakistan both have nuclear arsenals, she says.
“North Korea continues to develop its nuclear weapons capacity.”
‘Serious ramifications’ Clark, who was also United Nations Development Programme administrator from 2009 to 2017, a member of The Elders group of global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007, and is an advocate for multilateralism and nuclear disarmament, says an outright military conflict between China and the United States “would be one between two nuclear powers with serious ramifications for East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and far beyond.”
She advises New Zealand to be wary of Australia’s decision to enter a nuclear submarine purchase programme with the United States.
“There has been much speculation about a potential Pillar Two of the AUKUS agreement which would see others in the region become partners in the development of advanced weaponry,” Clark says.
“This is occurring in the context of rising tensions between the United States and China.
“Many of us share the view that New Zealand should be a voice for de-escalation, not for enthusiastic expansion of nuclear submarine fleets in the Pacific and the development of more lethal weaponry.”
Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior . . . publication July 2025. Image: Little Island Press
In the face of the “current global turbulence, New Zealand needs to reemphasise the principles and values which drove its nuclear-free legislation and its advocacy for a nuclear-free South Pacific and global nuclear disarmament.
Clark says that the years 1985 – the Rainbow Warrior was bombed by French secret agents on 10 July 1985 — and 1986 were critical years in the lead up to New Zealand’s nuclear-free legislation in 1987.
“New Zealanders were clear – we did not want to be defended by nuclear weapons. We wanted our country to be a force for diplomacy and for dialogue, not for warmongering.”
Chronicles humanitarian voyage The book Eyes of Fire chronicles the humanitarian voyage by the Greenpeace flagship to the Marshall Islands to relocate 320 Rongelap Islanders who were suffering serious community health consequences from the US nuclear tests in the 1950s.
The author, Dr David Robie, founder of the Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology, was the only journalist on board the Rainbow Warrior in the weeks leading up to the bombing.
His book recounts the voyage and nuclear colonialism, and the transition to climate justice as the major challenge facing the Pacific, although the “Indo-Pacific” rivalries between the US, France and China mean that geopolitical tensions are recalling the Cold War era in the Pacific.
Dr Robie is also critical of Indonesian colonialism in the Melanesian region of the Pacific, arguing that a just-outcome for Jakarta-ruled West Papua and also the French territories of Kanaky New Caledonia and “French” Polynesia are vital for peace and stability in the region.