hist2004
06-28-2004, 12:19 PM
Greenpeace Ship Rainbow Warrior-Sunk by French DGSE (Intelligence) agents
The Rainbow Warrior was used as a support vessel for many Greenpeace protest activities against sealing, whaling and nuclear weapons testing during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In 1985, she had travelled to New Zealand to lead a flotilla of yachts protesting against French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia. During previous nuclear tests at Mururoa, protest ships had been boarded by French commandos after sailing inside the shipping exclusion zone around the atoll. With the 1985 tests, Greenpeace had intended to monitor the impact of nuclear tests and place protesters on the island to do this. The French Government infiltrated the New Zealand organisation and discovered these plans.
The Rainbow Warrior was sunk just before midnight on July 10, 1985 by two explosive devices attached to the hull by operatives of French intelligence (DGSE). Of the twelve people on board, one, photographer Fernando Pereira, was drowned when he attempted to retrieve his equipment.
The New Zealand Police immediately initiated a homicide inquiry into the sinking. With the assistance of the New Zealand public, and an intense media focus, the police quickly established the movements of the bombers. On July 12, 1985, two of the six bombers were found, interviewed at length, arrested and sent to trial, and although they were operating under orders, eventually imprisoned for 5 years. The others, though identified and although three were interviewed by the New Zealand Police on Norfolk Island, where they had escaped in the yacht Ouvea, were not arrested due to lack of evidence. The Ouvea subsequently sailed for Nouméa but disappeared. Most of the agents remain in French government service. In 1987, under heavy international pressure, the French government paid $8.16 million compensation to Greenpeace.
The ship was refloated on August 21, 1985 and moved to a naval harbour for forensic examination. Although the hull had been recovered, the damage was too extensive for economic repair and the vessel was scuttled in Matauri Bay, Cavalli Islands on December 2, 1987, to serve as a dive wreck and fish sanctaury. The move is seen as a fitting end for the vessel.
THE FRENCH SECRET SERVICE AGENTS - WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Christine Cabon, alias Frederique Bonlieu Cabon joined the French army in 1977, and was later transferred to the intelligence gathering and evaluation wing of the Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE - French Secret Service). She infiltrated the Greenpeace New Zealand office in April 1985 to uncover plans for the Greenpeace Moruroa trip and gathered directions, maps, and information for the Ouvea crew and the Turenges. She left New Zealand on May 24 1985; at the time of the bombing she was in Israel. The same day the Auckland police asked the Israeli authorities to arrest her, she was warned off by the DGSE and was able to leave Israel before Israeli authorities arrested her. She has since disappeared.
Ouvea crew - the French support boat
The three Ouvea crew are believed to have smuggled explosives, an inflatable and an outboard motor into New Zealand. It is possible but unlikely that one of them actually placed the bombs.
Dr Xavier Maniguet
Maniguet was a doctor specializing in treating diving accident victims. He claimed only to have been a passenger on board the Ouvea. He was living in Dieppe, Normandy (France) in 1985. He later wrote a book, The Jaws Of Death (Shark As Predator, Man As Prey), which included reference to his role in the Rainbow Warrior bombing.
Chief Petty Officer Roland Verge, alias Raymond Velche, Skipper of the Ouvea,
Velche was a combat frogman who joined the French army in 1970 and was later seconded to the DGSE. He was based at the Navy Frogmen Training Centre (CINC) at Aspretto in Corsica, which was closed in 1986.
Petty Officer Bartelo, alias Jean-Michel Berthelot
Bartelo was also a combat frogman. His whereabouts since the bombing are unknown.
Petty Officer Gerald Andries, aliases Eric Audrenc, Eric Andreine
Member of the Ouvea crew, Andries was a combat frogman. He bought ,the inflatable and the outboard motor used in the bombing in London. Andries joined the French army in 1975 and later became a DGSE agent based at the Navy Frogmen Training Centre in Corsica. Six years after the bombing, on November 23 1991, Andries was arrested in Basel. He crossed into Switzerland on the Brussels-Milan Eurocity train without a passport: he could show the customs officers only a driver's licence and an army document. The police routinely checked the Interpol system and found there was still an international warrant outstanding for his arrest. He was detained in prison in Basel while the Swiss authorities awaited an extradition request from New Zealand.
On December 17 the New Zealand government informed the Swiss authorities that they would not be seeking Andries' extradition. Andries was subsequently released and immediately escorted to the French border. At the moment of his arrest Andries was still in the army but not a DGSE agent.
Major Alain Mafart, alias Alain Turenge
Mafart was a DGSE agent and deputy commander of the Navy Frogmen Training Centre in Corsica. He supported the sabotage team and was apprehended by New Zealand police when returning a rental van. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on November 22 1985. Following a United Nations sponsored mediation between New Zealand and France in July 1986 Mafart was deported to the island of Hao in French Polynesia to serve 3 years. In return France apologised to New Zealand and paid New Zealand US$7 million.
On 14 December 1987 Mafart was returned to Paris, after complaining of stomach pains. After treatment he was not returned to the island. In 1988 he enrolled on a two-year course at the Ecole de Guerre (War College) in Paris.
Mafart was promoted to colonel in December 1993. According to Le Monde, Mafart was then serving near Paris on a base housing several command staffs, including that of military intelligence. His commanding officer during the Rainbow Warrior affair is now an aide to Defence Minister Francois Leotard.
Captain Dominique Prieur, alias Sophie Turenge
Prieur was a DGSE controller in the intelligence-gathering and evaluation wing, acting as Christine Cabon's controller. She was a specialist in European peace movements. After her arrest by New Zealand police, she pleaded guilty with Mafart to reduced charges of manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on November 22, 1985. Because of the UN ruling in the arbitration between New Zealand and France (July 1986) she was deported to the island Hao (French Polynesia) to serve 3 years instead. On May 6, 1988 she was returned to France because she was pregnant (her husband was allowed to join her on Hao). As with Mafart, she never returned to Hao. She has since been promoted to the rank of Commandant.
A UN Arbitration panel found that France had breached its obligation to New Zealand several times by removing the agents from Hao and failing to return them, but it rejected an appeal by New Zealand to have Mafart and Prieur returned because the term they should have spent there had already lapsed.
Colonel Louis Pierre Dillais, alias Jean Louis Dormand Dillais was the chief of mission of the DGSE operation to stop the Rainbow Warrior on July 10, 1985. A senior officer at the underwater combat centre at Aspretto in Corsica, Dillais travelled under the code name of Jean Louis Dormand and reportedly drove the inflatable boat for the two divers who installed the bombs which sunk the Rainbow Warrior. After the bombing, he sent the two divers to the South Island of New Zealand to ski, and went himself as a tourist to Queenstown until he flew to Australia on July 23.
In 1994, French Defence Minister Francois Leotard appointed Dillais as chief of the private office of the Minister of Defence. In this post, he is in charge of military intelligence. Previously, Dillais worked for the general secretariat of the 'Defense National', attached to Prime Ministerial Services, in charge of European-Atlantic affairs.
Critics within the DGSE say that Dillais failed to protect his team because their names were revealed to the New Zealand police and their careers subsequently ended. They say Dillais' own career has been protected because his father-in-law is former foreign affairs minister Jean Francois Poncet.
Alain Tonel, Jacques Camurier, Francois Verlet Known by these names to the New Zealand police, these 3 men were the so-called 'third team' of divers, either a back-up team of frogmen or the saboteurs themselves. Verlet left for Tahiti on July 10 and Tonel and Camurier crossed to the South Island on July 11 with Dillais (Dormand) before leaving the country.
Colonel Jean-Calude Lesquer Lesquer, a colonel in 1985, was head of the action unit charged with the Rainbow Warrior bombing. Lesquer lost his post over the Rainbow Warrior scandal but was promoted to Brigadier-General because of his performance in the Gulf War. In February 1995 he was promoted to Major-General, and assigned to COFRAS, a semi- state body entrusted with following up major contracts between French arms manufacturers and foreign governments.
One official said he would be posted to Saudi Arabia, one of the French arms industry's main foreign clients. Lesquer served in Saudi Arabia in 1991 as chief of staff of the French Daguet division which fought alongside allied forces in the Gulf War.
Regards,
Hist2004
The Rainbow Warrior was used as a support vessel for many Greenpeace protest activities against sealing, whaling and nuclear weapons testing during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In 1985, she had travelled to New Zealand to lead a flotilla of yachts protesting against French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia. During previous nuclear tests at Mururoa, protest ships had been boarded by French commandos after sailing inside the shipping exclusion zone around the atoll. With the 1985 tests, Greenpeace had intended to monitor the impact of nuclear tests and place protesters on the island to do this. The French Government infiltrated the New Zealand organisation and discovered these plans.
The Rainbow Warrior was sunk just before midnight on July 10, 1985 by two explosive devices attached to the hull by operatives of French intelligence (DGSE). Of the twelve people on board, one, photographer Fernando Pereira, was drowned when he attempted to retrieve his equipment.
The New Zealand Police immediately initiated a homicide inquiry into the sinking. With the assistance of the New Zealand public, and an intense media focus, the police quickly established the movements of the bombers. On July 12, 1985, two of the six bombers were found, interviewed at length, arrested and sent to trial, and although they were operating under orders, eventually imprisoned for 5 years. The others, though identified and although three were interviewed by the New Zealand Police on Norfolk Island, where they had escaped in the yacht Ouvea, were not arrested due to lack of evidence. The Ouvea subsequently sailed for Nouméa but disappeared. Most of the agents remain in French government service. In 1987, under heavy international pressure, the French government paid $8.16 million compensation to Greenpeace.
The ship was refloated on August 21, 1985 and moved to a naval harbour for forensic examination. Although the hull had been recovered, the damage was too extensive for economic repair and the vessel was scuttled in Matauri Bay, Cavalli Islands on December 2, 1987, to serve as a dive wreck and fish sanctaury. The move is seen as a fitting end for the vessel.
THE FRENCH SECRET SERVICE AGENTS - WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Christine Cabon, alias Frederique Bonlieu Cabon joined the French army in 1977, and was later transferred to the intelligence gathering and evaluation wing of the Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE - French Secret Service). She infiltrated the Greenpeace New Zealand office in April 1985 to uncover plans for the Greenpeace Moruroa trip and gathered directions, maps, and information for the Ouvea crew and the Turenges. She left New Zealand on May 24 1985; at the time of the bombing she was in Israel. The same day the Auckland police asked the Israeli authorities to arrest her, she was warned off by the DGSE and was able to leave Israel before Israeli authorities arrested her. She has since disappeared.
Ouvea crew - the French support boat
The three Ouvea crew are believed to have smuggled explosives, an inflatable and an outboard motor into New Zealand. It is possible but unlikely that one of them actually placed the bombs.
Dr Xavier Maniguet
Maniguet was a doctor specializing in treating diving accident victims. He claimed only to have been a passenger on board the Ouvea. He was living in Dieppe, Normandy (France) in 1985. He later wrote a book, The Jaws Of Death (Shark As Predator, Man As Prey), which included reference to his role in the Rainbow Warrior bombing.
Chief Petty Officer Roland Verge, alias Raymond Velche, Skipper of the Ouvea,
Velche was a combat frogman who joined the French army in 1970 and was later seconded to the DGSE. He was based at the Navy Frogmen Training Centre (CINC) at Aspretto in Corsica, which was closed in 1986.
Petty Officer Bartelo, alias Jean-Michel Berthelot
Bartelo was also a combat frogman. His whereabouts since the bombing are unknown.
Petty Officer Gerald Andries, aliases Eric Audrenc, Eric Andreine
Member of the Ouvea crew, Andries was a combat frogman. He bought ,the inflatable and the outboard motor used in the bombing in London. Andries joined the French army in 1975 and later became a DGSE agent based at the Navy Frogmen Training Centre in Corsica. Six years after the bombing, on November 23 1991, Andries was arrested in Basel. He crossed into Switzerland on the Brussels-Milan Eurocity train without a passport: he could show the customs officers only a driver's licence and an army document. The police routinely checked the Interpol system and found there was still an international warrant outstanding for his arrest. He was detained in prison in Basel while the Swiss authorities awaited an extradition request from New Zealand.
On December 17 the New Zealand government informed the Swiss authorities that they would not be seeking Andries' extradition. Andries was subsequently released and immediately escorted to the French border. At the moment of his arrest Andries was still in the army but not a DGSE agent.
Major Alain Mafart, alias Alain Turenge
Mafart was a DGSE agent and deputy commander of the Navy Frogmen Training Centre in Corsica. He supported the sabotage team and was apprehended by New Zealand police when returning a rental van. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on November 22 1985. Following a United Nations sponsored mediation between New Zealand and France in July 1986 Mafart was deported to the island of Hao in French Polynesia to serve 3 years. In return France apologised to New Zealand and paid New Zealand US$7 million.
On 14 December 1987 Mafart was returned to Paris, after complaining of stomach pains. After treatment he was not returned to the island. In 1988 he enrolled on a two-year course at the Ecole de Guerre (War College) in Paris.
Mafart was promoted to colonel in December 1993. According to Le Monde, Mafart was then serving near Paris on a base housing several command staffs, including that of military intelligence. His commanding officer during the Rainbow Warrior affair is now an aide to Defence Minister Francois Leotard.
Captain Dominique Prieur, alias Sophie Turenge
Prieur was a DGSE controller in the intelligence-gathering and evaluation wing, acting as Christine Cabon's controller. She was a specialist in European peace movements. After her arrest by New Zealand police, she pleaded guilty with Mafart to reduced charges of manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on November 22, 1985. Because of the UN ruling in the arbitration between New Zealand and France (July 1986) she was deported to the island Hao (French Polynesia) to serve 3 years instead. On May 6, 1988 she was returned to France because she was pregnant (her husband was allowed to join her on Hao). As with Mafart, she never returned to Hao. She has since been promoted to the rank of Commandant.
A UN Arbitration panel found that France had breached its obligation to New Zealand several times by removing the agents from Hao and failing to return them, but it rejected an appeal by New Zealand to have Mafart and Prieur returned because the term they should have spent there had already lapsed.
Colonel Louis Pierre Dillais, alias Jean Louis Dormand Dillais was the chief of mission of the DGSE operation to stop the Rainbow Warrior on July 10, 1985. A senior officer at the underwater combat centre at Aspretto in Corsica, Dillais travelled under the code name of Jean Louis Dormand and reportedly drove the inflatable boat for the two divers who installed the bombs which sunk the Rainbow Warrior. After the bombing, he sent the two divers to the South Island of New Zealand to ski, and went himself as a tourist to Queenstown until he flew to Australia on July 23.
In 1994, French Defence Minister Francois Leotard appointed Dillais as chief of the private office of the Minister of Defence. In this post, he is in charge of military intelligence. Previously, Dillais worked for the general secretariat of the 'Defense National', attached to Prime Ministerial Services, in charge of European-Atlantic affairs.
Critics within the DGSE say that Dillais failed to protect his team because their names were revealed to the New Zealand police and their careers subsequently ended. They say Dillais' own career has been protected because his father-in-law is former foreign affairs minister Jean Francois Poncet.
Alain Tonel, Jacques Camurier, Francois Verlet Known by these names to the New Zealand police, these 3 men were the so-called 'third team' of divers, either a back-up team of frogmen or the saboteurs themselves. Verlet left for Tahiti on July 10 and Tonel and Camurier crossed to the South Island on July 11 with Dillais (Dormand) before leaving the country.
Colonel Jean-Calude Lesquer Lesquer, a colonel in 1985, was head of the action unit charged with the Rainbow Warrior bombing. Lesquer lost his post over the Rainbow Warrior scandal but was promoted to Brigadier-General because of his performance in the Gulf War. In February 1995 he was promoted to Major-General, and assigned to COFRAS, a semi- state body entrusted with following up major contracts between French arms manufacturers and foreign governments.
One official said he would be posted to Saudi Arabia, one of the French arms industry's main foreign clients. Lesquer served in Saudi Arabia in 1991 as chief of staff of the French Daguet division which fought alongside allied forces in the Gulf War.
Regards,
Hist2004