‘Many friends’ offer help

Press, 15 July 1985, Page 5

‘Many friends’ offer help

PA Auckland Greenpeace International yesterday paid tribute to the “tremendous outpouring of sympathy and offers of assistance” from New Zealanders since the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior late on Wednesday. Greenpeace workers and crew members from the Rainbow Warrior addressed a public meeting in Auckland attended by about 200 people. The woman who first proposed the idea of the Rainbow Warrior’s Pacific voyage, Greenpeace New Zealand’s anti-nuclear campaign co-ordinator, Elaine Shaw, said that the last few days had shown Greenpeace how many friends it had around New Zealand and the world. A Greenpeace International director and the coordinator of Rainbow

Warrior’s Pacific voyage, Mr Steve Sawyer, said that the ship was the most powerful symbol of the organisation.

“To lose her is to lose a big chunk of our soul,” he said. “I and others of the crew have invested years of our lives to keep her sailing, and her new sail rig was the crowning glory to our efforts.”

The Mayor of Auckland, Dame Catherine Tizard, will be a trustee of the fund for the children of Fernando Pereira, the Rainbow Warrior photographer killed when the ship sank. Dame Catherine and the Greenpeace national co-or-dinator, Ms Carol Stewart, will also be trustees for a fund to help the salvage and repair or replacement of the Rainbow Warrior.