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The French intelligence agent who led the deadly attack on the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand 30 years ago has for the first time apologised for his actions. PHOTO/BBC
Jean-Luc Kister French secret service agent PHOTO/ABC
AMY GOODMAN: Thirty years ago, French secret service blew up Greenpeace’s flagship Rainbow Warrior ship in Auckland, New Zealand, killing a Portuguese photographer, as the ship was preparing to head to sea to protest French nuclear bomb tests in the South Pacific. Now the French intelligence agent who led the deadly attack has come forward for the first time to apologize for his actions, breaking his silence after 30 years. On July 10th, 1985, Jean-Luc Kister led the dive team that planted the bombs on the Rainbow Warrior that sunk the ship and killed Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira.
TV New Zealand’s program Sunday this weekend tracked down Jean-Luc Kister in northern France and spoke to him about what happened that day. Reporter John Hudson also spoke with Peter Willcox, the captain of the Greenpeace ship, as well as Fernando Pereira’s daughter and the Le Monde journalist who helped break the remarkable story. This video report begins with Jean-Luc Kister, the French secret service agent, admitting his involvement in the fatal bombing.
JEAN-LUC KISTER: My role was to plant to two bombs on the Rainbow Warrior.
JOHN HUDSON: He led the dive team. He set the bombs. And for 30 years he remained hidden, guarding the secret of what really happened the night the Rainbow Warrior was sunk.
JEAN-LUC KISTER: For a member of the secret service, we never talk.
JOHN HUDSON: But finally, he is talking.
JEAN-LUC KISTER: We were not cold-blooded killers. We did everything to preserve the life of the people on board of the Rainbow Warrior.
JOHN HUDSON: From your point of view, was your part of the operation a success?
JEAN-LUC KISTER: No, for me, it was not successful. It was a big, big failure.
JOHN HUDSON: July 1985, the Rainbow Warrior sails into Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour, accompanied by a flotilla ready to join the Greenpeace ship at Moruroa Atoll to protest against French nuclear testing.
PETER WILLCOX: We were preparing to go to French Polynesia, where we were going to protest the nuclear testing of France.
JOHN HUDSON: But the French government had other ideas. It sent 13 members of its secret service, the DGSE, to sink the Rainbow Warrior before it left Auckland.
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