Two French agents flown out

Press, 24 July 1986, Page 8

Two French agents flown out

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington

The two French agents were flown out of New Zealand early yesterday morning — one year to the day after being charged for their role in the Rainbow Warrior bombing. Charges of arson and murder were laid against the two secret service officers — Major Alain Mafart and Captain Dominique Prieur — on July 23, 1985. They appeared in court the next day for a depositions hearing, and on November 4 pre-empted what had been expected to be a long trial by pleading guilty to manslaughter and wilful damage — both original charges having been reduced.

On November 22, they were sentenced to 10 years jail, a sentence which Prieur was later airily to dismiss with the comment that she would be “home by Christmas.” That proved to be optimistic, but Prieur was, in the final event, only seven months out, and much closer to the mark than comments the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, was making at the time would have indicated.

On November 25, he was resolute that the agents would not be deported in the life of this Government. When the question of an early deportation was put to him, he said: “I want to tell you of a sure way for the National Party to get their deposit back in some seats, and that would be

to have a picture of those two people sunning themselves in the South of France in September, 1987.”

Was it in deference to this sensitivity that the ruling by the United Nations Secretary-Gen-eral, Mr Javier Perez de Cuellar, expressly prohibits the agents from “any contact with the press or other media whether in person or in writing or in any other manner” during their enforced three-year stay at Hao military base in French Polynesia? The French are presenting this as a normal military posting for the two officers, which means they will receive full pay and be treated as much as possible like other staff. They will, however, be subject to special restrictions — able to leave the tiny atoll only with the consent of the French and New Zealand Governments and forbidden to mix with the islanders. Mr Perez de Cuellar described the “Hao solution” as an attempt to reconcile New Zealand’s insistence that Mafart and Prieur should not be allowed to go free, and France’s insistence that they should be returned immediately as they had been acting under orders in the sabotage and their imprisonment was therefore unjustified. The compromise was made possible, although only by a shift in the New Zealand position late last year when, on December 16, Mr Lange introduced for the first time the formula that there be no

release to freedom, a theme he was later to develop into the possibility of negotiating “a different type of detention in France or elsewhere.”

Against the grandeur of some of his earlier statements, since downgraded by Mr Lange himself as expressing the passion of the first response, this concession and the settlement it permitted have been slated as a Certainly there have been political costs, which Mr Lange’s critics have been keen to count, attributing the Government’s recent slump in popularity to the agreement to return the two agents. The latest poll, released last week, showed Mr Lange’s personal approval rating had dropped six points from June, that he had dropped three points as preferred Prime Minister, and that the Labour Party had dropped four points. Undoubtedly, public dissatisfaction with the Rainbow Warrior adjudication played a part in these results. Given the history of the affair, the disposition of power between France and New Zealand, and France’s characteristic high-hand-edness it is arguable that Mr Lange had any real choice but to make the concessions he did. Within weeks of the July 10 bombing, news media reports from Paris were implicating the French secret service. This forced President Mitterand to commission the Tricot inquiry which, when it was published on August 26, attracted

national ridicule as a clumsy whitewash — admitting on the one hand that five spies had been in New Zealand on a clandestine assignment while attempting on the other hand to exonerate them from the sabotage. But, even as Mr Lange was pouring scorn on the report, he was acknowledging that trade considerations must dictate a restrained response from New Zealand.

“There are too many common interests and in particular New Zealand would be at risk if it had within the European market an implacable foe,” he said.

“What we need is an understanding associate. Therefore, there is no suggestion that New Zealand diplomacy would set out to escalate this matter to the point where it rebounded on New Zealand.” Within these constraints, however, Mr Lange declared his anger, snapping off to France a demand for an immediate apology for the affront to New Zealand sovereignty and suggesting that the French Ambassador to Wellington, Mr Jacques Bourgoin, be recalled to Paris for “consultations” — a hefty rebuke in diplomatic circles.

The response came to be called the “Fabius Declaration” and was issued by the then French Prime Minister, Mr Laurent Fabius, late last September. It showed a measure of contrition or at least regret

Mr Fabius divorced

himself from the Tricot investigation, admitted French guilt and gave a commitment — never honoured — that the three Ouvea crew members would be brought to trial in France.

Mr Lange withdrew his suggestions that Mr Bourgoin be recalled and the two countries entered negotiations on the issue of compensation, although these were to founder almost immediately on the fate of Mafart and Prieur. Both sides tried to bolster their negotiating positions, New Zealand by threatening an inquiry into the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, which might bring to light facts embarrassing to France, and France by frustrating selected New Zealand imports — a campaign that was to intensify in March with the election of a Right-wing Gaullist Government under the leadership of Mr Jacques Chirac.

Even before he was elected, Mr Chirac was putting out signals that New Zealand’s continued access to the European Community might be threatened unless the agents were returned. The chairman of the Dairy Board, Mr Jim Graham, added weight to the threats when he returned from a visit to Europe in April, warning that the continuation of New Zealand’s exports to the European Community and the detention of Mafart and Prieur were inextricably entwined, a message the Prime Minister got first

hand when he toured the European capitals himself a month later, in June. Indications are that he was told by European leaders that the dispute must be resolved because they could not allow it to divide the Community. This concern was crystallised in a proposal from the Netherlands Prime Minister, Mr Ruud Lubbers, that the issue be put to an independent third party.

It was an avenue both New Zealand and France had already explored, and were now to explore further with both Governments agreeing in late June to submit the matters between them to the binding arbitration of Mr Perez de Cuellar. Terms of reference were drawn up, a process that on the New Zealand side took longer than expected, the stumbling block being what to do about Mafart and Prieur. According to reliable sources, the Attorney-Gen-eral, Mr Palmer, led resistance in the Cabinet to any proposal which might impugn the Independence of the New Zealand judicial system. That tension between principle and hard, economic reality, first highlighted by Mr Lange, has characterised the Rainbow Warrior debate.

It was perhaps appropriate, therefore, that New Zealand’s butter quotas ' to Europe for 1987 and 1988 should be announced on the same morning that the agents left the country amid high secregr and high security.