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Category: US nuclear tests

  • MIL-Evening Report: Rainbow Warrior bombing by French secret agents remembered 40 years on

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Te Aniwaniwa Paterson of Te Ao Māori News

    Forty years ago today, French secret agents bombed the Greenpeace campaign flagship  Rainbow Warrior in an attempt to stop the environmental organisation’s protest against nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll in Mā’ohi Nui.

    People gathered on board Rainbow Warrior III to remember photographer Fernando Pereira, who was killed in the attack, and to honour the legacy of those who stood up to nuclear testing in the Pacific.

    The Rainbow Warrior’s final voyage before the bombing was Operation Exodus, a humanitarian mission to the Marshall Islands. There, Greenpeace helped relocate more than 320 residents of Rongelap Atoll, who had been exposed to radiation from US nuclear testing.

    The dawn ceremony was hosted by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and attended by more than 150 people. Speeches were followed by the laying of a wreath and a moment of silence.

    Photographer Fernando Pereira and a woman from Rongelap on the day the Rainbow Warrior arrived in Rongelap Atoll in May 1985. Image: David Robie/Eyes of Fire

    Tui Warmenhoven (Ngāti Porou), the chair of the Greenpeace Aotearoa board, said it was a day to remember for the harm caused by the French state against the people of Mā’ohi Nui.

    Warmenhoven worked for 20 years in iwi research and is a grassroots, Ruatoria-based community leader who works to integrate mātauranga Māori with science to address climate change in Te Tai Rāwhiti.

    She encouraged Māori to stand united with Greenpeace.

    “Ko te mea nui ki a mātou, a Greenpeace Aotearoa, ko te whawhai i ngā mahi tūkino a rātou, te kāwanatanga, ngā rangatōpū, me ngā tāngata whai rawa, e patu ana i a mātou, te iwi Māori, ngā iwi o te ao, me ō mātou mātua, a Ranginui rāua ko Papatūānuku,” e ai ki a Warmenhoven.

    Tui Warmenhoven and Dr Russel Norman in front of Rainbow Warrior III on 10 July 2025. Image:Te Ao Māori News

    A defining moment in Aotearoa’s nuclear-free stand
     “The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was a defining moment for Greenpeace in its willingness to fight for a nuclear-free world,” said Dr Russel Norman, the executive director of Greenpeace Aotearoa.

    He noted it was also a defining moment for Aotearoa in the country’s stand against the United States and France, who conducted nuclear tests in the region.

    Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Dr Russel Norman speaking at the ceremony on board Rainbow Warrior III today. Image: Te Ao Māpri News

    In 1987, the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act officially declared the country a nuclear-free zone.

    This move angered the United States, especially due to the ban on nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships entering New Zealand ports.

    Because the US followed a policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons, it saw the ban as breaching the ANZUS Treaty and suspended its security commitments to New Zealand.

    The Rainbow Warrior’s final voyage before it was bombed was Operation Exodus, during which the crew helped relocate more than 320 residents of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands, who had been exposed to radiation from US nuclear testing between 1946 and 1958.

    The evacuation of Rongelap Islanders to Mejatto by the Rainbow Warrior crew in May 1985. Image: Greenpeace/Fernando Pereira

    The legacy of Operation Exodus
     Between 1946 and 1958, the United States carried out 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands.

    For decades, it denied the long-term health impacts, even as cancer rates rose and children were born with severe deformities.

    Despite repeated pleas from the people of Rongelap to be evacuated, the US government failed to act until Greenpeace stepped in to help.

    “The United States government effectively used them as guinea pigs for nuclear testing and radiation to see what would happen to people, which is obviously outrageous and disgusting,” Dr Norman said.

    He said it was important not to see Pacific peoples as victims, as they were powerful campaigners who played a leading role in ending nuclear testing in the region.

    Marshallese women greet the Rainbow Warrior as it arrived in the capital Majuro in March 2025. Image: Bianca Vitale/Greenpeace

    Between March and April this year, Rainbow Warrior III returned to the Marshall Islands to conduct independent research into the radiation levels across the islands to see whether it’s safe for the people of Rongelap to return.

    What advice do you give to this generation about nuclear issues?
     “Kia kotahi ai koutou ki te whai i ngā mahi uaua i mua i a mātou ki te whawhai i a rātou mā, e mahi tūkino ana ki tō mātou ao, ki tō mātou kōkā a Papatūānuku, ki tō mātou taiao,” hei tā Tui Warmenhoven.

    A reminder to stay united in the difficult world ahead in the fight against threats to the environment.

    Warmenhoven also encouraged Māori to support Greenpeace Aotearoa.

    Tui Warmenhoven and the captain of the Rainbow Warrior, Ali Schmidt, placed a wreath in the water at the stern of the ship in memory of Fernando Pereira. Image: Greenpeace

    Dr Norman believed the younger generations should be inspired to activism by the bravery of those from the Pacific and Greenpeace who campaigned for a nuclear-free world 40 years ago.

    “They were willing to take very significant risks, they sailed their boats into the nuclear test zone to stop those nuclear tests, they were arrested by the French, beaten up by French commandos,” he said.

    Republished from Te Ao Māori News with permission.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Rainbow Warrior bombing by French secret agents remembered 40 years on

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Te Aniwaniwa Paterson of Te Ao Māori News

    Forty years ago today, French secret agents bombed the Greenpeace campaign flagship  Rainbow Warrior in an attempt to stop the environmental organisation’s protest against nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll in Mā’ohi Nui.

    People gathered on board Rainbow Warrior III to remember photographer Fernando Pereira, who was killed in the attack, and to honour the legacy of those who stood up to nuclear testing in the Pacific.

    The Rainbow Warrior’s final voyage before the bombing was Operation Exodus, a humanitarian mission to the Marshall Islands. There, Greenpeace helped relocate more than 320 residents of Rongelap Atoll, who had been exposed to radiation from US nuclear testing.

    The dawn ceremony was hosted by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and attended by more than 150 people. Speeches were followed by the laying of a wreath and a moment of silence.

    Photographer Fernando Pereira and a woman from Rongelap on the day the Rainbow Warrior arrived in Rongelap Atoll in May 1985. Image: David Robie/Eyes of Fire

    Tui Warmenhoven (Ngāti Porou), the chair of the Greenpeace Aotearoa board, said it was a day to remember for the harm caused by the French state against the people of Mā’ohi Nui.

    Warmenhoven worked for 20 years in iwi research and is a grassroots, Ruatoria-based community leader who works to integrate mātauranga Māori with science to address climate change in Te Tai Rāwhiti.

    She encouraged Māori to stand united with Greenpeace.

    “Ko te mea nui ki a mātou, a Greenpeace Aotearoa, ko te whawhai i ngā mahi tūkino a rātou, te kāwanatanga, ngā rangatōpū, me ngā tāngata whai rawa, e patu ana i a mātou, te iwi Māori, ngā iwi o te ao, me ō mātou mātua, a Ranginui rāua ko Papatūānuku,” e ai ki a Warmenhoven.

    Tui Warmenhoven and Dr Russel Norman in front of Rainbow Warrior III on 10 July 2025. Image:Te Ao Māori News

    A defining moment in Aotearoa’s nuclear-free stand
     “The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was a defining moment for Greenpeace in its willingness to fight for a nuclear-free world,” said Dr Russel Norman, the executive director of Greenpeace Aotearoa.

    He noted it was also a defining moment for Aotearoa in the country’s stand against the United States and France, who conducted nuclear tests in the region.

    Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Dr Russel Norman speaking at the ceremony on board Rainbow Warrior III today. Image: Te Ao Māpri News

    In 1987, the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act officially declared the country a nuclear-free zone.

    This move angered the United States, especially due to the ban on nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships entering New Zealand ports.

    Because the US followed a policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons, it saw the ban as breaching the ANZUS Treaty and suspended its security commitments to New Zealand.

    The Rainbow Warrior’s final voyage before it was bombed was Operation Exodus, during which the crew helped relocate more than 320 residents of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands, who had been exposed to radiation from US nuclear testing between 1946 and 1958.

    The evacuation of Rongelap Islanders to Mejatto by the Rainbow Warrior crew in May 1985. Image: Greenpeace/Fernando Pereira

    The legacy of Operation Exodus
     Between 1946 and 1958, the United States carried out 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands.

    For decades, it denied the long-term health impacts, even as cancer rates rose and children were born with severe deformities.

    Despite repeated pleas from the people of Rongelap to be evacuated, the US government failed to act until Greenpeace stepped in to help.

    “The United States government effectively used them as guinea pigs for nuclear testing and radiation to see what would happen to people, which is obviously outrageous and disgusting,” Dr Norman said.

    He said it was important not to see Pacific peoples as victims, as they were powerful campaigners who played a leading role in ending nuclear testing in the region.

    Marshallese women greet the Rainbow Warrior as it arrived in the capital Majuro in March 2025. Image: Bianca Vitale/Greenpeace

    Between March and April this year, Rainbow Warrior III returned to the Marshall Islands to conduct independent research into the radiation levels across the islands to see whether it’s safe for the people of Rongelap to return.

    What advice do you give to this generation about nuclear issues?
     “Kia kotahi ai koutou ki te whai i ngā mahi uaua i mua i a mātou ki te whawhai i a rātou mā, e mahi tūkino ana ki tō mātou ao, ki tō mātou kōkā a Papatūānuku, ki tō mātou taiao,” hei tā Tui Warmenhoven.

    A reminder to stay united in the difficult world ahead in the fight against threats to the environment.

    Warmenhoven also encouraged Māori to support Greenpeace Aotearoa.

    Tui Warmenhoven and the captain of the Rainbow Warrior, Ali Schmidt, placed a wreath in the water at the stern of the ship in memory of Fernando Pereira. Image: Greenpeace

    Dr Norman believed the younger generations should be inspired to activism by the bravery of those from the Pacific and Greenpeace who campaigned for a nuclear-free world 40 years ago.

    “They were willing to take very significant risks, they sailed their boats into the nuclear test zone to stop those nuclear tests, they were arrested by the French, beaten up by French commandos,” he said.

    Republished from Te Ao Māori News with permission.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: David Robie: New Zealand must do more for Pacific and confront nuclear powers

    Rongelap Islanders on board the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior travelling to their new home on Mejatto Island in 1985 — less than two months before the bombing. Image: ©1985 David Robie/Eyes of Fire

    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.”

    The New Zealand government commits almost 60 percent of its development funding to the region.

    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.

    Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: David Robie: New Zealand must do more for Pacific and confront nuclear powers

    Rongelap Islanders on board the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior travelling to their new home on Mejatto Island in 1985 — less than two months before the bombing. Image: ©1985 David Robie/Eyes of Fire

    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.”

    The New Zealand government commits almost 60 percent of its development funding to the region.

    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.

    Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: David Robie condemns ‘callous’ health legacy of French, US nuclear bomb tests in Pacific

    Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. –

    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.

    This article was first published on Café Pacific.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: The Rainbow Warrior saga. Part 2: Nuclear refugees in the Pacific – the evacuation of Rongelap

    COMMENTARY:  By Eugene Doyle

    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

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Guam nuclear radiation survivors ‘heartbroken’ over exclusion from compensation bill

    By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist

    People on Guam are “disappointed” and “heartbroken” that radiation exposure compensation is not being extended to them, says the president of the Pacific Association for Radiation Survivors (PARS), Robert Celestial.

    He said they were disappointed for many reasons.

    “Congress seems to not understand that we are no different than any state,” he told RNZ Pacific.

    “We are human beings, we are affected in the same way they are. We are suffering the same way, we are greatly disappointed, heartbroken,” Celestial said.

    The extension to the United States Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) was part of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” passed by Congress on Friday (Thursday, Washington time).

    Downwind compensation eligibility would extend to the entire states of Utah, Idaho and New Mexico, but Guam – which was included in an earlier version of the bill – was excluded.

    All claimants are eligible for US$100,000.

    Attempt at amendment
    Guam Republican congressman James Moylan attempted to make an amendment to include Guam before the bill reached the House floor earlier in the week.

    “Guam has become a forgotten casualty of the nuclear era,” Moylan told the House Rules Committee.

    “Federal agencies have confirmed that our island received measurable radiation exposure as a result of US nuclear testing in the Pacific and yet, despite this clear evidence, Guam remains excluded from RECA, a program that was designed specifically to address the harm caused by our nation’s own policies.

    “Guam is not asking for special treatment we are asking to be treated with dignity equal to the same recognition afforded to other downwind communities across our nation.”

    Moylan said his constituents are dying from cancers linked to radiation exposure.

    From 1946 to 1962, 67 nuclear bombs were detonated in the Marshall Islands, just under 2000 kilometres from Guam.

    New Mexico Democratic congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández supported Moylan, who said it was “sad Guam and other communities were not included”.

    Colorado, Montana excluded
    The RECA extension also excluded Colorado and Montana; Idaho was also for a time but this was amended.

    Pacific Association for Radiation Survivors (PARS) members at a gathering . . . “heartbroken” that radiation exposure compensation is not being extended to them. Image: RNZ Pacific/Eleisha Foon

    Celestial said he had heard different rumours about why Guam was not included but nothing concrete.

    “A lot of excuses were saying that it’s going to cost too much. You know, Guam is going to put a burden on finances.”

    But Celestial said the cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office for Guam to be included was US$560 million while Idaho was $1.4 billion.

    “[Money] can’t be the reason that Guam got kicked out because we’re the lowest on the totem pole for the amount of money it’s going to cost to get us through in the bill.”

    Certain zip codes
    The bill also extends to communities in certain zip codes in Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alaska, who were exposed to nuclear waste.

    Celestial said it’s taken those states 30 years to be recognised and expects Guam to be eventually paid.

    He said Moylan would likely now submit a standalone bill with the other states that were not included.

    If that fails, he said Guam could be included in nuclear compensation through the National Defense Authorization Act in December, which is for military financial support.

    The RECA extension includes uranium workers employed from 1 January 1942 to 31 December 1990.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: The Rainbow Warrior saga: 1. French state terrorism and NZ’s end of innocence

    COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

    Immediately after killing Fernando Pereira and blowing up Greenpeace’s flagship the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, several of the French agents went on a ski holiday in New Zealand’s South Island to celebrate.

    Such was the contempt the French had for the Kiwis and the abilities of our police to pursue them.  How wrong they were.

    To mark the 40th anniversary of the French terrorist attack Little Island Press has published a revised and updated edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, first released in 1986.

    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.

    Written by David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report, who spent 11 weeks on the final voyage of the Warrior, the book is the most remarkable piece of history I have read this year and one of those rare books that has the power to expand your mind and make your blood boil at the same time. I thought I knew a fair bit about the momentous events surrounding the attack — until I read Eyes of Fire.

    Heroes of our age
     The book covers the history of Greenpeace action — from fighting the dumping of nuclear and other toxic waste in European waters, the Arctic and the Pacific, voyages to link besieged communities across the oceans, through to their epic struggles to halt whaling and save endangered marine colonies from predators.

    The Rainbow Warrior’s very last voyage before the bombing was to evacuate the entire population of Rongelap atoll (about 320 people) in the Marshall Islands who had been exposed to US nuclear radiation for decades.

    This article is the first of two in which I will explore themes that the book triggered for me.

    Neither secret nor intelligent – the French secret intelligence service

    Jean-Luc Kister was the DGSE (Direction-générale de la Sécurité extérieure) agent who placed the two bombs that ripped a massive hole in the hull of the Warrior on 10 July 1985. The ship quickly sank, trapping Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira inside.

    Former colonel Kister was a member of a large team of elite agents sent to New Zealand. One had also infiltrated Greenpeace months before, some travelled through the country prior to the attack, drinking, rooting New Zealand women and leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that led all the way to the Palais de l’Élysée where François Mitterrand, Socialist President of France, had personally given the order to bomb the famous peace vessel.

    Robie aptly calls the French mission “Blundergate”. The stupidity, howling incompetence and moronic lack of a sound strategic rationale behind the attack were only matched by the mendacity, the imperial hauteur and the racist contempt that lies at the heart of French policy in the Pacific to this very day.

    Thinking the Kiwi police would be no match for their élan, their savoir-faire and their panache, some of the killers hit the ski slopes to celebrate “Mission Accompli”. Others fled to Norfolk Island aboard a yacht, the Ouvéa.

    Tracked there by the New Zealand police it was only with the assistance of our friends and allies, the Australians, that the agents were able to escape. Within days they sank their yacht at sea during a rendezvous with a French nuclear submarine and were evenually able to return to France for medals and promotions.

    Two of the agents, however, were not so lucky. As everyone my age will recall, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, were nabbed after a lightning fast operation by New Zealand police.

    With friends and allies like these, who needs enemies?
     We should recall that the French were our allies at the time. They decided, however, to stop the Rainbow Warrior from leading a flotilla of ships up to Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia where yet another round of nuclear tests were scheduled. In other words: they bombed a peace ship to keep testing bombs.

    By 1995, France had detonated 193 nuclear bombs in the South Pacific.

    David Robie sees the bombing as “a desperate attempt by one of the last colonial powers in the Pacific to hang on to the vestiges of empire by blowing up a peace ship so it could continue despoiling Pacific islands for the sake of an independent nuclear force”.

    The US, UK and Australia cold-shouldered New Zealand through this period and uttered not a word of condemnation against the French. Within two years we were frog-marched out of the ANZUS alliance with Australia and the US because of our ground-breaking nuclear-free legislation.

    It was a blessing and the dawn of a period in which New Zealanders had an intense sense of national pride — a far cry from today when New Zealand politicians are being referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes associated with the Gaza genocide.

    Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior . . . publication next week. Image: ©  David Robie/Eyes Of Fire/Little Island Press

    The French State invented the term ‘terrorism’
     I studied French History at university in France and did a paper called “La France à la veille de révolution” (France on the eve of revolution). One of the chilling cultural memories is of the period from September 1793 to July 1794, which was known as La Terreur.

    At the time the French state literally coined the term “terrorisme” — with the blade of the guillotine dropping on neck after neck as the state tried to consolidate power through terror. But, as Robie points out, quoting law professor Roger S. Clark, we tend to use the term today to refer almost exclusively to non-state actors.

    With the US and Israel gunning down starving civilians in Gaza every day, with wave after wave of terror attacks being committed inside Iran and across the Middle East by Mossad, the CIA and MI6, we should amend this erroneous habit.

    The DGSE team who attached limpet mines to the Rainbow Warrior did so as psychopathic servants of the French State. Eyes of Fire: “At the time, Prime Minister David Lange described the Rainbow Warrior attack as ‘nothing more than a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism’.”

    Don’t get me wrong. I am not “anti-French”. I lived for years in France, had a French girlfriend, studied French history, language and literature. I even had friends in Wellington who worked at the French Embassy.

    Curiously when I lived next to Premier House, the official residence of the prime minister, my other next door neighbour was a French agent who specialised in surveillance. Our houses backed onto Premier House. Quelle coïncidence. To his mild consternation I’d greet him with “Salut, mon espion favori.” (Hello, my favourite spy).

    What I despise is French colonialism, French racism, and what the French call magouillage. I don’t know a good English word for it . . .  it is a mix of shenanigans, duplicity, artful deception to achieve unscrupulous outcomes that can’t be publicly avowed. In brief: what the French attempted in Auckland in 1985.

    Robie recounts in detail the lying, smokescreens and roadblocks that everyone from President Mitterrand through to junior officials put in the way of the New Zealand investigators. Mitterrand gave Prime Minister David Lange assurances that the culprits would be brought to justice. The French Embassy in Wellington claimed at the time: “In no way is France involved. The French government doesn’t deal with its opponents in such ways.”

    It took years for the bombshell to explode that none other than Mitterrand himself had ordered the terrorist attack on New Zealand and Greenpeace!

    Rainbow Warrior III . . . the current successor to the bombed ship. Photographed at Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands in April 2025. Image: © Bianca Vitale/Greenpeace

    We the people of the Pacific
     We, the people of the Pacific, owe a debt to Greenpeace and all those who were part of the Rainbow Warrior, including author David Robie. We must remember the crime and call it by its name: state terrorism.

    The French attempted to escape justice, deny involvement and then welched on the terms of the agreement negotiated with the help of the United Nations secretary-general.

    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.

    I’ll give the last word to former Prime Minister Helen Clark:

    “This is the time for New Zealand to link with the many small and middle powers across regions who have a vision for a world characterised by solidarity and peace and which can rise to the occasion to combat the existential challenges it faces — including of nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence. If our independent foreign policy is to mean anything in the mid-2020s, it must be based on concerted diplomacy for peace and sustainable development.”

    You cannot sink a rainbow.

    Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: The Rainbow Warrior saga: 1. French state terrorism and NZ’s end of innocence

    COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

    Immediately after killing Fernando Pereira and blowing up Greenpeace’s flagship the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, several of the French agents went on a ski holiday in New Zealand’s South Island to celebrate.

    Such was the contempt the French had for the Kiwis and the abilities of our police to pursue them.  How wrong they were.

    To mark the 40th anniversary of the French terrorist attack Little Island Press has published a revised and updated edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, first released in 1986.

    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.

    Written by David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report, who spent 11 weeks on the final voyage of the Warrior, the book is the most remarkable piece of history I have read this year and one of those rare books that has the power to expand your mind and make your blood boil at the same time. I thought I knew a fair bit about the momentous events surrounding the attack — until I read Eyes of Fire.

    Heroes of our age
     The book covers the history of Greenpeace action — from fighting the dumping of nuclear and other toxic waste in European waters, the Arctic and the Pacific, voyages to link besieged communities across the oceans, through to their epic struggles to halt whaling and save endangered marine colonies from predators.

    The Rainbow Warrior’s very last voyage before the bombing was to evacuate the entire population of Rongelap atoll (about 320 people) in the Marshall Islands who had been exposed to US nuclear radiation for decades.

    This article is the first of two in which I will explore themes that the book triggered for me.

    Neither secret nor intelligent – the French secret intelligence service

    Jean-Luc Kister was the DGSE (Direction-générale de la Sécurité extérieure) agent who placed the two bombs that ripped a massive hole in the hull of the Warrior on 10 July 1985. The ship quickly sank, trapping Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira inside.

    Former colonel Kister was a member of a large team of elite agents sent to New Zealand. One had also infiltrated Greenpeace months before, some travelled through the country prior to the attack, drinking, rooting New Zealand women and leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that led all the way to the Palais de l’Élysée where François Mitterrand, Socialist President of France, had personally given the order to bomb the famous peace vessel.

    Robie aptly calls the French mission “Blundergate”. The stupidity, howling incompetence and moronic lack of a sound strategic rationale behind the attack were only matched by the mendacity, the imperial hauteur and the racist contempt that lies at the heart of French policy in the Pacific to this very day.

    Thinking the Kiwi police would be no match for their élan, their savoir-faire and their panache, some of the killers hit the ski slopes to celebrate “Mission Accompli”. Others fled to Norfolk Island aboard a yacht, the Ouvéa.

    Tracked there by the New Zealand police it was only with the assistance of our friends and allies, the Australians, that the agents were able to escape. Within days they sank their yacht at sea during a rendezvous with a French nuclear submarine and were evenually able to return to France for medals and promotions.

    Two of the agents, however, were not so lucky. As everyone my age will recall, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, were nabbed after a lightning fast operation by New Zealand police.

    With friends and allies like these, who needs enemies?
     We should recall that the French were our allies at the time. They decided, however, to stop the Rainbow Warrior from leading a flotilla of ships up to Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia where yet another round of nuclear tests were scheduled. In other words: they bombed a peace ship to keep testing bombs.

    By 1995, France had detonated 193 nuclear bombs in the South Pacific.

    David Robie sees the bombing as “a desperate attempt by one of the last colonial powers in the Pacific to hang on to the vestiges of empire by blowing up a peace ship so it could continue despoiling Pacific islands for the sake of an independent nuclear force”.

    The US, UK and Australia cold-shouldered New Zealand through this period and uttered not a word of condemnation against the French. Within two years we were frog-marched out of the ANZUS alliance with Australia and the US because of our ground-breaking nuclear-free legislation.

    It was a blessing and the dawn of a period in which New Zealanders had an intense sense of national pride — a far cry from today when New Zealand politicians are being referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes associated with the Gaza genocide.

    Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior . . . publication next week. Image: ©  David Robie/Eyes Of Fire/Little Island Press

    The French State invented the term ‘terrorism’
     I studied French History at university in France and did a paper called “La France à la veille de révolution” (France on the eve of revolution). One of the chilling cultural memories is of the period from September 1793 to July 1794, which was known as La Terreur.

    At the time the French state literally coined the term “terrorisme” — with the blade of the guillotine dropping on neck after neck as the state tried to consolidate power through terror. But, as Robie points out, quoting law professor Roger S. Clark, we tend to use the term today to refer almost exclusively to non-state actors.

    With the US and Israel gunning down starving civilians in Gaza every day, with wave after wave of terror attacks being committed inside Iran and across the Middle East by Mossad, the CIA and MI6, we should amend this erroneous habit.

    The DGSE team who attached limpet mines to the Rainbow Warrior did so as psychopathic servants of the French State. Eyes of Fire: “At the time, Prime Minister David Lange described the Rainbow Warrior attack as ‘nothing more than a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism’.”

    Don’t get me wrong. I am not “anti-French”. I lived for years in France, had a French girlfriend, studied French history, language and literature. I even had friends in Wellington who worked at the French Embassy.

    Curiously when I lived next to Premier House, the official residence of the prime minister, my other next door neighbour was a French agent who specialised in surveillance. Our houses backed onto Premier House. Quelle coïncidence. To his mild consternation I’d greet him with “Salut, mon espion favori.” (Hello, my favourite spy).

    What I despise is French colonialism, French racism, and what the French call magouillage. I don’t know a good English word for it . . .  it is a mix of shenanigans, duplicity, artful deception to achieve unscrupulous outcomes that can’t be publicly avowed. In brief: what the French attempted in Auckland in 1985.

    Robie recounts in detail the lying, smokescreens and roadblocks that everyone from President Mitterrand through to junior officials put in the way of the New Zealand investigators. Mitterrand gave Prime Minister David Lange assurances that the culprits would be brought to justice. The French Embassy in Wellington claimed at the time: “In no way is France involved. The French government doesn’t deal with its opponents in such ways.”

    It took years for the bombshell to explode that none other than Mitterrand himself had ordered the terrorist attack on New Zealand and Greenpeace!

    Rainbow Warrior III . . . the current successor to the bombed ship. Photographed at Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands in April 2025. Image: © Bianca Vitale/Greenpeace

    We the people of the Pacific
     We, the people of the Pacific, owe a debt to Greenpeace and all those who were part of the Rainbow Warrior, including author David Robie. We must remember the crime and call it by its name: state terrorism.

    The French attempted to escape justice, deny involvement and then welched on the terms of the agreement negotiated with the help of the United Nations secretary-general.

    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.

    I’ll give the last word to former Prime Minister Helen Clark:

    “This is the time for New Zealand to link with the many small and middle powers across regions who have a vision for a world characterised by solidarity and peace and which can rise to the occasion to combat the existential challenges it faces — including of nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence. If our independent foreign policy is to mean anything in the mid-2020s, it must be based on concerted diplomacy for peace and sustainable development.”

    You cannot sink a rainbow.

    Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Clark warns in new Pacific book renewed nuclear tensions pose ‘existential threat to humanity’

    Asia Pacific Report

    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.

    “The Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists now sits at 89 seconds to midnight,” she says in the prologue to journalist and media academic David Robie’s book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior.

    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.

    Eyes of Fire is being published by Little Island Press, which also produced one of his earlier books, Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Marshall Islands nuclear legacy: report highlights lack of health research

    By Giff Johnson, editor, Marshall Islands Journal, and RNZ Pacific correspondent

    A new report on the United States nuclear weapons testing legacy in the Marshall Islands highlights the lack of studies into important health concerns voiced by Marshallese for decades that make it impossible to have a clear understanding of the impacts of the 67 nuclear weapons tests.

    The Legacy of US Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands, a report by Dr Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, was released late last month.

    The report was funded by Greenpeace Germany and is an outgrowth of the organisation’s flagship vessel, Rainbow Warrior III, visiting the Marshall Islands from March to April to recognise the 40th anniversary of the resettlement of the nuclear test-affected population of Rongelap Atoll.

    Dr Mahkijani said that among the “many troubling aspects” of the legacy is that the United States had concluded, in 1948, after three tests, that the Marshall Islands was not “a suitable site for atomic experiments” because it did not meet the required meteorological criteria.

    “Yet testing went on,” he said.

    “Also notable has been the lack of systematic scientific attention to the accounts by many Marshallese of severe malformations and other adverse pregnancy outcomes like stillbirths. This was despite the documented fallout throughout the country and the fact that the potential for fallout to cause major birth defects has been known since the 1950s.”

    Dr Makhijani highlights the point that, despite early documentation in the immediate aftermath of the 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test and numerous anecdotal reports from Marshallese women about miscarriages and still births, US government medical officials in charge of managing the nuclear test-related medical programme in the Marshall Islands never systematically studied birth anomalies.

    Committed billions of dollars
    The US Deputy Secretary of State in the Biden-Harris administration, Kurt Cambell, said that Washington, over decades, had committed billions of dollars to the damages and the rebuilding of the Marshall Islands.

    “I think we understand that that history carries a heavy burden, and we are doing what we can to support the people in the [Compact of Free Association] states, including the Marshall Islands,” he told reporters at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Nuku’alofa last year.

    “This is not a legacy that we seek to avoid. We have attempted to address it constructively with massive resources and a sustained commitment.”

    Among points outlined in the new report:

    • Gamma radiation levels at Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, officially considered a “very low exposure” atoll, were tens of times, and up to 300 times, more than background in the immediate aftermaths of the thermonuclear tests in the Castle series at Bikini Atoll in 1954.
    • Thyroid doses in the so-called “low exposure atolls” averaged 270 milligray (mGy), 60 percent more than the 50,000 people of Pripyat near Chernobyl who were evacuated (170 mGy) after the 1986 accident there, and roughly double the average thyroid exposures in the most exposed counties in the United States due to testing at the Nevada Test Site.
    Women from the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll greeted the Rainbow Warrior and its crew with songs and dances as part of celebrating the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll in 1985 by the Rainbow Warrior. Image: RNZ Pacific/Giff Johnson

    Despite this, “only a small fraction of the population has been officially recognised as exposed enough for screening and medical attention; even that came with its own downsides, including people being treated as experimental subjects,” the report said.

    Women reported adverse outcomes
    “In interviews and one 1980s country-wide survey, women have reported many adverse pregnancy outcomes,” said the report.

    “They include stillbirths, a baby with part of the skull missing and ‘the brain and the spinal cord fully exposed,’ and a two-headed baby. Many of the babies with major birth defects died shortly after birth.

    “Some who lived suffered very difficult lives, as did their families. Despite extensive personal testimony, no systematic country-wide scientific study of a possible relationship of adverse pregnancy outcomes to nuclear testing has been done.

    “It is to be noted that awareness among US scientists of the potential for major birth defects due to radioactive fallout goes back to the 1950s. Hiroshima-Nagasaki survivor data has also provided evidence for this problem.

    “The occurrence of stillbirths and major birth defects due to nuclear testing fallout in the Marshall Islands is scientifically plausible but no definitive statement is possible at the present time,” the report concluded.

    “The nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands created a vast amount of fission products, including radioactive isotopes that cross the placenta, such as iodine-131 and tritium.

    “Radiation exposure in the first trimester can cause early failed pregnancies, severe neurological damage, and other major birth defects.

    No definitive statement possible
    “This makes it plausible that radiation exposure may have caused the kinds of adverse pregnancy outcomes that were experienced and reported.

    “However, no definitive statement is possible in the absence of a detailed scientific assessment.”

    Scientists who traveled with the Rainbow Warrior III on its two-month visit to the Marshall Islands earlier this year collected samples from Enewetak, Bikini, Rongelap and other atolls for scientific study and evaluation.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –