You Can Never Sink a Rainbow: Anti-Nuclearism in the Pacific
2016; Harvard International Relations Council; Volume: 37; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0739-1854
Autores Tópico(s)Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies
ResumoIt was a scene straight out of an espionage film. French secret service agents, posing under assumed names, had been monitoring ship for months. On July 10, 1985, they finally acted--agents donned scuba gear and dove into harbor, planting two limpet mines beneath ship. The charges were detonated just before midnight. Within four minutes of second explosion, boat was beneath waves and an innocent man was dead. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In an era of spies and Cold War tensions, this operation seems almost par for course. But French agents were not targeting a Soviet adversary, or indeed any participant in rivalry between East and West. The ship in question was Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace trawler peacefully campaigning against French nuclear testing in Pacific. And location of bombing was port of Auckland, New Zealand, hardly hostile territory for French. But France and New Zealand were in a conflict of sorts. Beginning in 1940s, France, Britain, and United States conducted hundreds of nuclear tests in Pacific, without consultation or consent of Pacific Islanders. By 1980s, countries and people of Pacific were fighting back via peaceful protests and legal action. France responded with violence. As details of attack surfaced, France faced an international scandal. It eventually agreed to pay New Zealand NZ$13 million (approximately US$6.5 million) in damages. But only two of French agents were ever captured, and due to French diplomatic efforts (the threat of a trade embargo), they served less than two years for their crimes. Additionally, despite admitting responsibility, France never apologized for death of Portuguese photographer Fernando Pereira in bombing. Thirty years later, crew of Rainbow Warrior is still waiting. But three-decade anniversary brought a historic apology from another source. In September, Jean-Luc Kister, one of frogmen responsible for planting bombs, finally spoke out. In an interview with New Zealand's TVNZ, he apologized to Greenpeace and New Zealand people, admitting to having the blood of an innocent man on [his] conscience. The apology was widely accepted, but Rainbow Warrior's former captain, Peter Willcox, has stressed that it does not absolve Kister or French government of cold-blooded murder. Nor does it begin to address bigger issue underlying bombing--what motivated French president to personally sponsor a terrorist attack on a national ally. For 50 years, France, Britain, and United States exploited South Pacific in pursuit of their nuclear ambitions, destroying lives and ecosystems and bullying any actors who posed opposition. The sinking of Rainbow Warrior was just one violent episode in a half-century of abuse. France never faced serious consequences for attack because fellow world powers, United States and United Kingdom, stood behind it. All three countries have been accused of providing insufficient compensation and showing a lack of remorse for former transgressions. This past February, Fijian government promised financial assistance to 24 soldiers subjected to radiation poisoning during British testing on Kiribati after repeated failure to draw compensation from United Kingdom. Prime Minister Bainimarama announced payouts in February with resigned explanation, Fiji is not prepared to wait for Britain to do right thing. The Pacific Ocean is often depicted in maps and popular imagination as an space, a mass of blue between coasts of Asia, Australia, and Americas. This sense of South and Central Pacific as empty is what drew colonial powers to region for nuclear testing--they could do things in open ocean that would not have been acceptable in their own backyards. But Pacific is not empty, and despite their small numbers, its inhabitants have never been willing to sit idly by in face of environmental destruction. …
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