Rainbow Warrior affair looming larger in Paris

Press, 2 December 1985, Page 6

Rainbow Warrior affair looming larger in Paris

From

ROBIN CHARTERIS

London correspondent

Debate in France on the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior is expected to intensify in the coming weeks, according to Sam White, Paris correspondent of the “Standard” newspaper. In an article headlined “Greenpeace: the bungling goes on,” White says the Greenpeace affair is far from closed as French Cabinet Ministers have been saying in Yecent weeks.

“It has now become a much more explosive issue than ever with the approach of next March’s General Elections.”

French hopes that a purely formal sentence, followed by deportation, would be imposed on the two agents convicted of manslaughter were dashed by the 10-year jail terms. Also, the statement of the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, that they would remain in prison for at least the lifetime of the present Parliament has precluded hopes of Government clemency.

“Just as the original sabotage operation was badly bungled, so, too, were

French efforts to do a deal with the New Zealanders over the two captives, or ‘hostages’ as they appear in French eyes," White says.

“The major blunder was the concept of a deal itself which the French Government broadly based on the promise of increased imports of New Zealand lamb in return for the release of .the ‘hostages’.” Such a deal, intended to pacify public opinion in France by showing the Government was doing all it could to free the agents, inevitably had the opposite effect on public opinion in New Zealand.

“There it could only appear as an attempt to induce the New Zealand Government to bring pressure on the Judiciary to return a lenient verdict — in other words, to undermine its independence. The effect could only be counterproductive.

Other errors of a similar but lesser nature followed, as for example, the much publicised telephone call by the Minister of Defence, Mr Quiles, to Dominique Prieur on the eve of the trial, in which' 'he told her the Frenclj were bringing all

possible pressure to bear on the New Zealand Government for their early release. While this was done to appease public opinion at home, it had the foreseeable consequence of outraging New Zealanders.

White suggests the French Government has considered what other pressures it can bring on New Zealand to secure the release of the agents before March, but for various reasons, economic measures either by France alone or through the Common Market have, after study, proved impractical. France’s E.E.C. partners have already made if clear they would not follow so dubious a course, White says.

The French did consider appealing to the British Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, to use her influence, but it had been felt she would be unlikely to forget the French attempt to blame the British secret service for the sinking. . “Since then, relations between Britain and France worsened with the recent French vote at the United Nations in favour of negotiations with Argentina

over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.

“According to ‘Le Monde,’ if Mrs Thatcher had accepted the task by using her good offices with Mr Lange, the French vote at the United Nations would not have gone the way it did,” White says. Now, with the deadlock over the two imprisoned agents, the mystery con,tmues as to the political .level on which the original, order to sink the Rainbow Warrior was given. Because of the impending election, the debate should intensify.

The former Defence Minister, Mr Charles Hernu, •who was forced to resign on the ground that he deceived the French Prime Minister, Mr Fabius, and President Mitterrand on the planned operation, repeated last week that he did not give the order for the sinking, nor did the head of the secret service, the dismissed Admiral Lacoste, nor did Mr Fabius, nor did President Mitterrand.

“But someone on a high political level must have given the green light for an operation of such dubious character, carried out in the territorial waters of a friendly Power,” says White.