Thirty years after he planted the bombs that sank the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, French spy Jean-Luc Kister is keen to salve his conscience. He is remorseful about the death of Portuguese-born photographer Fernando Pereira in the explosion. He also is critical of "an unfair, clandestine operation conducted in an allied, friendly and peaceful country". All this is clear to him with the value of hindsight. It should also have been apparent to him and his fellow saboteurs before they committed the outrage, so much so they should have stopped Operation Satanique in its tracks.
Mr Kister had a distinguished career in the French spy agency, the DGSE. He was awarded the Legion d'Honneur in 1994 and served as a United Nations military adviser. But, during the New Zealand mission at least, he demonstrated no appreciation of the principles established by the Nuremberg Trials following the end of World War II. They decreed that when an illegal act was committed, it was no longer a defence to say the perpetrator was only following orders, as Mr Kister now maintains was the case in Auckland. Officers had a right and a duty to disobey illegal orders.
It is possible to see these principles as impossibly lofty, and running counter to the waging of effective warfare. How can this be done successfully if officers spend their time questioning or disobeying orders? Nonetheless, they signalled the end of the line for the blind obedience that characterised many of the heinous crimes of Nazi Germany and which was used as a defence at Nuremberg. Henceforth, officers had a responsibility to conduct themselves according to new dictates. The 12-member French squad had every reason to question an exercise that Mr Kister now describes as "like using boxing gloves to crush a mosquito".
It could be argued they were merely following the orders of a democratically elected government. But that is certainly not how the French have chosen to portray the operation. President Francois Mitterrand's knowledge of it has never been clear. Rather, the French have tended to suggest it was the product of rogue action by the Defence Minister, Charles Hernu, who was subsequently forced to resign. If so, any whiff of legality comes to nought.
Mr Kister is also keen to claim the operation was planned specifically to avoid harming members of the ship's crew. The bombs, he says, were not meant to be so damaging - "we didn't expect the boat will sink so quickly". Fernando Pereira paid the cost for that miscalculation. If the aim was to stop Greenpeace members losing their lives, it can only be concluded that, in addition to a blinkered attitude, the French were hopelessly incompetent. As much was perhaps confirmed by the arrests of team members Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart.
