Os Serviços Secretos franceses afundaram o Rainbow Warrior e assassinaram o fotógrafo Fernando Pereira há 37 anos

A drawing of the Rainbow Warrior

   

The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique, was an operation by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence services, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), carried out on July 10, 1985. It aimed to sink the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, the Rainbow Warrior in the port of Auckland, New Zealand, to prevent her from interfering in a nuclear test in Moruroa.

Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship. Two French agents were arrested by the New Zealand Police on passport fraud and immigration charges. They were charged with arson, conspiracy to commit arson, willful damage, and murder. As part of a plea bargain, they pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to ten years in prison, of which they served just over two.

The scandal resulted in the resignation of the French Defence Minister Charles Hernu.

  

In the 1980s, the Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique was developing nuclear warheads for the M4 SLBM, which were tested in underground explosions in the French Polynesian atoll of Moruroa.

Greenpeace was opposed to testing and planned to lead yachts to the atoll to protest, including an illegal incursion into French military zones. The Rainbow Warrior had not previously visited New Zealand, but David Lange's New Zealand Labour Party government opposed nuclear weapons development and had banned nuclear-armed or powered ships from New Zealand ports. (As a consequence the United States was in the process of withdrawing from its ANZUS mutual defence treaty obligations.)

The French government decided that in order to stop the planned protest, the Greenpeace flagship would have to be sunk. Operation Satanique would seek to disable the Rainbow Warrior while it was docked, while trying to prevent any casualties. Twenty years after the incident, a report by the then head of French intelligence said that the attack was authorized by French President François Mitterrand.

 

Agents had boarded and examined the ship while it was open to public viewing. DGSE agent Christine Cabon, posing as environmentalist Frederique Bonlieu, volunteered for the Greenpeace office in Auckland. Cabon secretly monitored communications from the Rainbow Warrior, collected maps, and investigated underwater equipment, in order to provide information crucial to the sinking. After the necessary information had been gathered, two DGSE divers beneath the Rainbow Warrior attached two limpet mines and detonated them 10 minutes apart. The first bomb went off 11:38 P.M., creating a large hole about the size of an average car. Agents intended the first mine to cripple the ship so that everybody would be evacuated safely off when the second mine was detonated. However, the crew did not react to the first explosion as the agents had expected. While the ship was initially evacuated, some of the crew returned to the ship to investigate and film the damage. A Portuguese-Dutch photographer, Fernando Pereira, returned below decks to fetch his camera equipment. At 11:45 P.M., the second bomb went off. Pereira drowned in the rapid flooding that followed, and the other ten crew members were either safely evacuated on the order of Captain Peter Willcox or were thrown into the water by the second explosion. The Rainbow Warrior sank four minutes later.

  

 Fernando Pereira

  

Operation Satanique was a public relations disaster. France, being an ally of New Zealand, initially denied involvement and joined in condemnation of what it termed to be a terrorist act. The French Embassy in Wellington denied involvement, stating that "the French Government does not deal with its opponents in such ways".

After the bombing, the New Zealand Police started one of the country's largest police investigations. Most of the agents escaped New Zealand but two, Captain Dominique Prieur and Commander Alain Mafart – posing as married couple 'Sophie and Alain Turenge' and having Swiss passports – were identified as possible suspects with the help of a Neighborhood Watch group, and were arrested. Both were questioned and investigated, and their true identities were uncovered, along with the French government's responsibility. Both agents pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on November 22, 1985.

France threatened an economic embargo of New Zealand's exports to the European Economic Community if the pair was not released. Such an action would have crippled the New Zealand economy, which was dependent on agricultural exports to Britain.

  

In June 1986, in a political deal with Prime Minister of New Zealand David Lange and presided over by United Nations Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, France agreed to pay NZ$13 million (USD$6.5 million) to New Zealand and apologise, in return for which Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur would be detained at the French military base on Hao Atoll for three years. However, the two agents had both returned to France by May 1988, after less than two years on the atoll. Mafart returned to Paris on December 14, 1987 for medical treatment, and was apparently freed after treatment. He continued in the French Army and was promoted to colonel in 1993. Prieur returned to France on May 6, 1988 because she was pregnant, her husband having been allowed to join her on the atoll. She, too, was freed and later promoted. The removal of the agents from Hao without subsequent return was ruled to be in violation of the 1986 agreement.

Three other agents, Chief Petty Officer Roland Verge, Petty Officer Bartelo and Petty Officer Gérard Andries, who sailed to New Zealand on the yacht Ouvéa, were arrested by Australian police on Norfolk Island, but released as Australian law did not allow them to be held until the results of forensic tests came back. They were then picked up by the French submarine Rubis, which scuttled the Ouvéa.

A sixth agent, Louis-Pierre Dillais, commander of the operation, was never captured and never faced charges. He acknowledged his involvement in an interview with New Zealand State broadcaster TVNZ in 2005.

A commission of enquiry headed by Bernard Tricot cleared the French government of any involvement, claiming that the arrested agents, who had not yet pleaded guilty, had merely been spying on Greenpeace. When The Times and Le Monde claimed that President Mitterrand had approved the bombing, Defence Minister Charles Hernu resigned and the head of the DGSE, Admiral Pierre Lacoste, was fired. Eventually, Prime MinisterLaurent Fabius admitted the bombing had been a French plot: On 22 September 1985, he summoned journalists to his office to read a 200 word statement in which he said: "The truth is cruel," and acknowledged there had been a cover-up, he went on to say that "Agents of the French secret service sank this boat. They were acting on orders."

      

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Neil Finn, o vocalista dos Crowded House, faz hoje 64 anos

      
Neil Mullane Finn (Te Awamutu, 27 de maio de 1958) é um cantor e compositor neozelandês. Ele foi vocalista e líder do grupo Crowded House e, anteriormente, de uma outra banda, também neozelandesa, chamada Split Enz.

   

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Kiri Te Kanawa faz hoje 78 anos

   

Kiri Te Kanawa (Gisborne, 6 de março de 1944) é uma aclamada soprano lírica neozelandesa. O seu reportório vai do século XVII ao século XX e é particularmente dedicada às obras de Mozart, Richard Strauss, Verdi, Handel e Puccini. 

Nos últimos anos, raramente atua em óperas, embora seja vista com frequência em recitais e concertos. Em agosto de 2009, o jornal The Daily Telegraph de Londres relatou que ela deixaria de cantar óperas, que requerem uma disciplina exaustiva. A sua última apresentação operística foi em abril de 2010, na Ópera de Colónia, onde cantou "Marschallin" de Der Rosenkavalier (Richard Strauss).

Nascida Claire Mary Teresa Rawstron em Gisborne, Ilha do Norte, na Nova Zelândia, de origem maori e irlandesa, foi adotada, quando bebê, por Thomas Te Kanawa e sua mulher, Nell, que lhe deram o nome de Kiri. Thomas, assim como o pai biológico de Kiri era um maori, e Nell era de ascendência irlandesa, tal como a mãe biológica da cantora.

   
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Um sismo afetou a capital da Ilha do Sul da Nova Zelândia há onze anos

Edifício destruído em Christchurch

     
O Sismo de Canterbury de 2011 (também conhecido como sismo de Christchurch) foi um sismo de 6,3 de magnitude que atingiu a Ilha do Sul da Nova Zelândia às 12.51 horas de 22 de fevereiro de 2011 (hora local), que corresponde às 23.51 horas de 21 de fevereiro UTC. O número de mortes provocadas pelo sismo foi inicialmente estimado em 159 (em 2 de março de 2011), passando depois para 185.

A região mais afectada foi província de Canterbury, em particular a cidade de Christchurch, situada a 10 km do epicentro do sismo. Essa mesma região já tinha sido atingida por um sismo de 7,1 M_W em 4 de setembro de 2010.

   

Mapa de intensidade do sismo, mostrando o epicentro próximo de Christchurch

     

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James Cook morreu há 243 anos

     

James Cook (Marton, 7 de novembro de 1728 - Kealakekua, 14 de fevereiro de 1779) foi um explorador, navegador e cartógrafo inglês. Cook foi o primeiro a mapear a Terra Nova antes de fazer três viagens ao Oceano Pacífico durante a quais conseguiu o primeiro contacto europeu com a costa leste da Austrália e o Arquipélago do Havai, bem como a primeira circum-navegação registada da Nova Zelândia.

James Cook entrou na marinha mercante britânica enquanto adolescente e ingressou na Marinha Real em 1755. Participou da Guerra dos Sete Anos, e posteriormente estudou e mapeou grande parte da entrada do Rio São Lourenço durante o cerco de Quebec. Isso permitiu que o General Wolfe fizesse o seu famoso ataque nas Planícies de Abraão, e ajudou a ter a atenção do Almirantado Britânico e da Royal Society. Esta notícia veio num momento crucial, tanto na sua carreira pessoal e na direção das explorações ultramarinas britânicas, e levou-o ao seu cargo de comandante da HM Bark Endeavour para a primeira das três viagens do Pacífico.

Cook cartografou muitas áreas e registou várias ilhas e zonas costeiras nos mapas europeus pela primeira vez. Os seus resultados podem ser atribuídos a uma combinação de navegação, superior levantamento cartográfico e competências, a coragem em explorar locais perigosos para confirmar os factos (por exemplo, a imersão no Círculo Polar Antártico repetidamente e explorar ao redor da Grande Barreira de Coral), uma capacidade de conduzir os homens em condições adversas, e ousadia, tanto em relação à medida da sua exploração e sua vontade de ultrapassar as instruções dadas a ele pelo Almirantado.

No seu livro "Colapso" (2005), o biólogo e biogeógrafo Jared Diamond (E.U.A) cita um registo feito por Cook em que o capitão descreve uma breve visita à ilha de Páscoa, em 1744. "Pequenos, magros, tímidos e miseráveis", foi como Cook descreveu os insulares, que já enfrentavam um forte problema ambiental.

Cook morreu na baía havaiana de Kealakekua em 1779, numa luta com os nativos durante a sua terceira viagem exploratória na região do Pacífico. A casa de Cook na Inglaterra é hoje um memorial. Cook é considerado o pai da Oceania.

  

As viagens de Cook - a primeira a vermelho, a segunda a verde e a terceira a azul

     

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O tratado fundador da Nova Zelândia foi assinado há 182 anos

  

O Tratado de Waitangi foi assinado em 6 de fevereiro de 1840, em Waitangi, na Baía das Ilhas, na Nova Zelândia, pelos representantes da Coroa Britânica, os chefes da Confederação das Tribos da Nova Zelândia e outras tribos Māori.

Para essa finalidade, o capitão William Hobson havia sido enviado à Nova Zelândia com instruções precisas da parte de Lord Normanby de firmar um acordo com os nativos e obter controle total sobre a Nova Zelândia.

O tratado foi assinado em duas versões - em (inglês e em maori). O texto é pequeno, com apenas três artigos. O primeiro garante a soberania da Rainha de Inglaterra sobre a Nova Zelândia. O segundo garante aos chefes tribais a continuidade da chefia e a pertença das suas terras e tesouros (tsonga em māori ). O terceiro artigo garante a todos os Māori os mesmos direitos que os colonos britânicos.

As versões em inglês e em māori não são idênticas, o que causou dificuldades de interpretação e ainda hoje provoca conflitos entre os maoris e os descendentes dos britânicos. Muitos Māori acham que a Coroa não honrou os seus compromissos e apresentaram evidências disso diante dos tribunais. Entre os não-Māori há aqueles que discordem deste não cumprimento argumentando que os Māori dão muita importância ao tratado com o objetivo reclamar e obter privilégios especiais.

Os māori querem milhões de dólares em indemnizações e também um pedido de desculpas.

      

  
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O Estatuto de Westminster foi aprovado há noventa anos

(imagem daqui)

O Estatuto de Westminster, assinado em 11 de dezembro de 1931, foi uma emenda do Parlamento do Reino Unido que estabeleceu o status de iguais entre os diferentes domínios independentes do Império Britânico e do Reino Unido. Este estatuto deu aos países, ex-colónias inglesas, Austrália, Canadá, África do Sul e Nova Zelândia, total independência política.

Anteriormente ao tratado, o papel do Ministério do Exterior dos três países era desempenhado pelo Reino Unido, motivo pela qual os três países entraram automaticamente na Primeira Guerra Mundial.

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Há 128 anos um fantástico país decidiu dar direito de voto às mulheres

  

The New Zealand general election of 1893 was held on Tuesday, 28 November in the general electorates, and on Wednesday, 20 December in the Māori electorates to elect a total of 74 MPs to the 12th session of the New Zealand Parliament. A total number of 302,997 (75.3%) voters turned out to vote.

The election was won by the Liberal Party, and Richard Seddon became Prime Minister.

1893 was the year universal suffrage was granted to women over 21 (including Māori), plural registration was abolished, plural voting for Māori property-owners was abolished, and only those whose descent was exactly half Māori or less were allowed to choose whether to vote in European or Māori electorates. Women's suffrage was the most consequential change.

  

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O acidente na mina de Pike River matou 27 mineiros há onze anos

(imagem daqui)

   

O acidente na mina de Pike River ocorreu em 19 de novembro de 2010 em Greymouth, Nova Zelândia. Uma explosão deixou cerca de 29 mineiros presos a pelo menos 1.500 metros da entrada da mina. A jazida situa-se 120 metros abaixo da superfície, e entra-se nela primariamente pela horizontal. Dois mineiros escaparam com ferimentos leves no dia da explosão, ao escalarem um poço de ventilação.

No dia 24 de novembro de 2010, especialistas conseguiram perfurar um pequeno túnel até a galeria. Ao analisarem a qualidade do ar, foi constatada uma quantia excessiva de monóxido de carbono e gás metano, indicando quantidade insuficiente de oxigénio. Estudava-se a possibilidade de os mineiros já estarem mortos devido à intoxicação, quando uma segunda explosão dentro da galeria foi sentida da superfície, acabando com as esperanças das equipas de resgate de salvar os trabalhadores soterrados.

 

 

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Música adequada à data...

Lorde - 25 anos

Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (Auckland, 7 de novembro de 1996), mais conhecida pelo nome artístico Lorde, é uma cantora e compositora neozelandesa. Foi eleita a jovem mais influente do mundo pela revista norte-americana Time, e nomeada "Mulher Do Ano" pela MTV, em 2013. Tornou-se conhecida a partir do single "Royals", que lhe rendeu o título de a mais jovem artista a conquistar o primeiro lugar da Billboard Hot 100, dos Estados Unidos, e venceu o Grammy Awards de "Canção do Ano", em 2014.

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Os Serviços Secretos franceses afundaram o Rainbow Warrior e assassinaram o fotógrafo Fernando Pereira há 36 anos

A drawing of the Rainbow Warrior

   

The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique, was an operation by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence services, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), carried out on July 10, 1985. It aimed to sink the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, the Rainbow Warrior in the port of Auckland, New Zealand, to prevent her from interfering in a nuclear test in Moruroa.

Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship. Two French agents were arrested by the New Zealand Police on passport fraud and immigration charges. They were charged with arson, conspiracy to commit arson, willful damage, and murder. As part of a plea bargain, they pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to ten years in prison, of which they served just over two.

The scandal resulted in the resignation of the French Defence Minister Charles Hernu.

  

In the 1980s, the Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique was developing nuclear warheads for the M4 SLBM, which were tested in underground explosions in the French Polynesian atoll of Moruroa.

Greenpeace was opposed to testing and planned to lead yachts to the atoll to protest, including an illegal incursion into French military zones. The Rainbow Warrior had not previously visited New Zealand, but David Lange's New Zealand Labour Party government opposed nuclear weapons development and had banned nuclear-armed or powered ships from New Zealand ports. (As a consequence the United States was in the process of withdrawing from its ANZUS mutual defence treaty obligations.)

The French government decided that in order to stop the planned protest, the Greenpeace flagship would have to be sunk. Operation Satanique would seek to disable the Rainbow Warrior while it was docked, while trying to prevent any casualties. Twenty years after the incident, a report by the then head of French intelligence said that the attack was authorized by French President François Mitterrand.

 

Agents had boarded and examined the ship while it was open to public viewing. DGSE agent Christine Cabon, posing as environmentalist Frederique Bonlieu, volunteered for the Greenpeace office in Auckland. Cabon secretly monitored communications from the Rainbow Warrior, collected maps, and investigated underwater equipment, in order to provide information crucial to the sinking. After the necessary information had been gathered, two DGSE divers beneath the Rainbow Warrior attached two limpet mines and detonated them 10 minutes apart. The first bomb went off 11:38 P.M., creating a large hole about the size of an average car. Agents intended the first mine to cripple the ship so that everybody would be evacuated safely off when the second mine was detonated. However, the crew did not react to the first explosion as the agents had expected. While the ship was initially evacuated, some of the crew returned to the ship to investigate and film the damage. A Portuguese-Dutch photographer, Fernando Pereira, returned below decks to fetch his camera equipment. At 11:45 P.M., the second bomb went off. Pereira drowned in the rapid flooding that followed, and the other ten crew members were either safely evacuated on the order of Captain Peter Willcox or were thrown into the water by the second explosion. The Rainbow Warrior sank four minutes later.

  

 Fernando Pereira

  

Operation Satanique was a public relations disaster. France, being an ally of New Zealand, initially denied involvement and joined in condemnation of what it termed to be a terrorist act. The French Embassy in Wellington denied involvement, stating that "the French Government does not deal with its opponents in such ways".

After the bombing, the New Zealand Police started one of the country's largest police investigations. Most of the agents escaped New Zealand but two, Captain Dominique Prieur and Commander Alain Mafart – posing as married couple 'Sophie and Alain Turenge' and having Swiss passports – were identified as possible suspects with the help of a Neighborhood Watch group, and were arrested. Both were questioned and investigated, and their true identities were uncovered, along with the French government's responsibility. Both agents pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on November 22, 1985.

France threatened an economic embargo of New Zealand's exports to the European Economic Community if the pair was not released. Such an action would have crippled the New Zealand economy, which was dependent on agricultural exports to Britain.

  

In June 1986, in a political deal with Prime Minister of New Zealand David Lange and presided over by United Nations Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, France agreed to pay NZ$13 million (USD$6.5 million) to New Zealand and apologise, in return for which Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur would be detained at the French military base on Hao Atoll for three years. However, the two agents had both returned to France by May 1988, after less than two years on the atoll. Mafart returned to Paris on December 14, 1987 for medical treatment, and was apparently freed after treatment. He continued in the French Army and was promoted to colonel in 1993. Prieur returned to France on May 6, 1988 because she was pregnant, her husband having been allowed to join her on the atoll. She, too, was freed and later promoted. The removal of the agents from Hao without subsequent return was ruled to be in violation of the 1986 agreement.

Three other agents, Chief Petty Officer Roland Verge, Petty Officer Bartelo and Petty Officer Gérard Andries, who sailed to New Zealand on the yacht Ouvéa, were arrested by Australian police on Norfolk Island, but released as Australian law did not allow them to be held until the results of forensic tests came back. They were then picked up by the French submarine Rubis, which scuttled the Ouvéa.

A sixth agent, Louis-Pierre Dillais, commander of the operation, was never captured and never faced charges. He acknowledged his involvement in an interview with New Zealand State broadcaster TVNZ in 2005.

A commission of enquiry headed by Bernard Tricot cleared the French government of any involvement, claiming that the arrested agents, who had not yet pleaded guilty, had merely been spying on Greenpeace. When The Times and Le Monde claimed that President Mitterrand had approved the bombing, Defence Minister Charles Hernu resigned and the head of the DGSE, Admiral Pierre Lacoste, was fired. Eventually, Prime MinisterLaurent Fabius admitted the bombing had been a French plot: On 22 September 1985, he summoned journalists to his office to read a 200 word statement in which he said: "The truth is cruel," and acknowledged there had been a cover-up, he went on to say that "Agents of the French secret service sank this boat. They were acting on orders."

   

in Wikipédia

Neil Finn, vocalista dos Crowded House, faz hoje 63 anos

      
Neil Mullane Finn (Te Awamutu, 27 de maio de 1958) é um cantor e compositor neozelandês. Ele foi vocalista e líder do grupo Crowded House e, anteriormente, de uma outra banda, também neozelandesa, chamada Split Enz.

   

in Wikipédia

 

A soprano Kiri Te Kanawa faz hoje 77 anos

   

Kiri Te Kanawa (Gisborne, 6 de março de 1944) é uma aclamada soprano lírica neozelandesa. O seu reportório vai do século XVII ao século XX e é particularmente dedicada às obras de Mozart, Richard Strauss, Verdi, Handel e Puccini.

   
in Wikipédia

 

   
 

A terra tremeu fortemente na capital da Ilha do Sul da Nova Zelândia há dez anos

Edifício destruído em Christchurch

  
O Sismo de Canterbury de 2011 (também conhecido como sismo de Christchurch) foi um sismo de 6,3 de magnitude que atingiu a Ilha do Sul da Nova Zelândia às 12.51 horas de 22 de fevereiro de 2011 (hora local), que corresponde às 23.51 horas de 21 de fevereiro UTC. O número de mortes provocadas pelo sismo foi inicialmente estimado em 159 (em 2 de março de 2011), passando depois para 185.

A região mais afectada foi província de Canterbury, em particular a cidade de Christchurch, situada a 10 km do epicentro do sismo. Essa mesma região já tinha sido atingida por um sismo de 7,1 M_W em 4 de setembro de 2010.

Mapa de intensidade do sismo, mostrando o epicentro próximo de Christchurch

  

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James Cook morreu há 242 anos

   

James Cook (Marton, 7 de novembro de 1728 - Kealakekua, 14 de fevereiro de 1779) foi um explorador, navegador e cartógrafo inglês. Cook foi o primeiro a mapear a Terra Nova antes de fazer três viagens ao Oceano Pacífico durante a quais conseguiu o primeiro contacto europeu com a costa leste da Austrália e o Arquipélago do Havai, bem como a primeira circum-navegação registada da Nova Zelândia.

James Cook entrou na marinha mercante britânica enquanto adolescente e ingressou na Marinha Real em 1755. Participou da Guerra dos Sete Anos, e posteriormente estudou e mapeou grande parte da entrada do Rio São Lourenço durante o cerco de Quebec. Isso permitiu que o General Wolfe fizesse o seu famoso ataque nas Planícies de Abraão, e ajudou a ter a atenção do Almirantado Britânico e da Royal Society. Esta notícia veio num momento crucial, tanto na sua carreira pessoal e na direção das explorações ultramarinas britânicas, e levou-o ao seu cargo de comandante da HM Bark Endeavour para a primeira das três viagens do Pacífico.

Cook cartografou muitas áreas e registou várias ilhas e zonas costeiras nos mapas europeus pela primeira vez. Os seus resultados podem ser atribuídos a uma combinação de navegação, superior levantamento cartográfico e competências, a coragem em explorar locais perigosos para confirmar os factos (por exemplo, a imersão no Círculo Polar Antártico repetidamente e explorar ao redor da Grande Barreira de Coral), uma capacidade de conduzir os homens em condições adversas, e ousadia, tanto em relação à medida da sua exploração e sua vontade de ultrapassar as instruções dadas a ele pelo Almirantado.

No seu livro "Colapso" (2005), o biólogo e biogeógrafo Jared Diamond (E.U.A) cita um registo feito por Cook em que o capitão descreve uma breve visita à ilha de Páscoa, em 1744. "Pequenos, magros, tímidos e miseráveis", foi como Cook descreveu os insulares, que já enfrentavam um forte problema ambiental.

Cook morreu na baía havaiana de Kealakekua em 1779, numa luta com os nativos durante a sua terceira viagem exploratória na região do Pacífico. A casa de Cook na Inglaterra é hoje um memorial. Cook é considerado o pai da Oceania.

  

As viagens de Cook - a primeira a vermelho, a segunda a verde e a terceira a azul

     

in Wikipédia

O tratado que deu origem à Nova Zelândia foi assinado há 181 anos

  

O Tratado de Waitangi foi assinado em 6 de fevereiro de 1840, em Waitangi, na Baía das Ilhas, na Nova Zelândia, pelos representantes da Coroa Britânica, os chefes da Confederação das Tribos da Nova Zelândia e outras tribos Māori.

Para essa finalidade, o capitão William Hobson havia sido enviado à Nova Zelândia com instruções precisas da parte de Lord Normanby de firmar um acordo com os nativos e obter controle total sobre a Nova Zelândia.

O tratado foi assinado em duas versões - em (inglês e em maori). O texto é pequeno, com apenas três artigos. O primeiro garante a soberania da Rainha de Inglaterra sobre a Nova Zelândia. O segundo garante aos chefes tribais a continuidade da chefia e a pertença das suas terras e tesouros (tsonga em māori ). O terceiro artigo garante a todos os Māori os mesmos direitos que os colonos britânicos.

As versões em inglês e em māori não são idênticas, o que causou dificuldades de interpretação e ainda hoje provoca conflitos entre os maoris e os descendentes dos britânicos. Muitos Māori acham que a Coroa não honrou seus compromissos e apresentaram evidências disso diante dos tribunais. Entre os não-Māori há aqueles que discordem deste não cumprimento argumentando que os Māori dão muita importância ao tratado com o objetivo reclamar e obter privilégios especiais.

Os māori querem milhões de dólares em indemnizações e também um pedido de desculpas.

 

in Wikipédia

O acidente na mina de Pike River foi há dez anos

(imagem daqui)

   

O acidente na mina de Pike River ocorreu em 19 de novembro de 2010 em Greymouth, Nova Zelândia. Uma explosão deixou cerca de 29 mineiros presos a pelo menos 1.500 metros da entrada da mina. A jazida situa-se 120 metros abaixo da superfície, e entra-se nela primariamente pela horizontal. Dois mineiros escaparam com ferimentos leves no dia da explosão, ao escalarem um poço de ventilação.

No dia 24 de novembro de 2010, especialistas conseguiram perfurar um pequeno túnel até a galeria. Ao analisarem a qualidade do ar, foi constatada uma quantia excessiva de monóxido de carbono e gás metano, indicando quantidade insuficiente de oxigénio. Estudava-se a possibilidade de os mineiros já estarem mortos devido à intoxicação, quando uma segunda explosão dentro da galeria foi sentida da superfície, acabando com as esperanças das equipes de resgate de salvar os trabalhadores soterrados.

 

 

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Há 35 anos os Serviços Secretos franceses afundaram o Rainbow Warrior e assassinaram o fotógrafo Fernando Pereira

A drawing of the Rainbow Warrior

   

The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique, was an operation by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence services, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), carried out on July 10, 1985. It aimed to sink the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, the Rainbow Warrior in the port of Auckland, New Zealand, to prevent her from interfering in a nuclear test in Moruroa.

Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship. Two French agents were arrested by the New Zealand Police on passport fraud and immigration charges. They were charged with arson, conspiracy to commit arson, willful damage, and murder. As part of a plea bargain, they pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to ten years in prison, of which they served just over two.

The scandal resulted in the resignation of the French Defence Minister Charles Hernu.

  

In the 1980s, the Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique was developing nuclear warheads for the M4 SLBM, which were tested in underground explosions in the French Polynesian atoll of Moruroa.

Greenpeace was opposed to testing and planned to lead yachts to the atoll to protest, including an illegal incursion into French military zones. The Rainbow Warrior had not previously visited New Zealand, but David Lange's New Zealand Labour Party government opposed nuclear weapons development and had banned nuclear-armed or powered ships from New Zealand ports. (As a consequence the United States was in the process of withdrawing from its ANZUS mutual defence treaty obligations.)

The French government decided that in order to stop the planned protest, the Greenpeace flagship would have to be sunk. Operation Satanique would seek to disable the Rainbow Warrior while it was docked, while trying to prevent any casualties. Twenty years after the incident, a report by the then head of French intelligence said that the attack was authorized by French President François Mitterrand.

 

Agents had boarded and examined the ship while it was open to public viewing. DGSE agent Christine Cabon, posing as environmentalist Frederique Bonlieu, volunteered for the Greenpeace office in Auckland. Cabon secretly monitored communications from the Rainbow Warrior, collected maps, and investigated underwater equipment, in order to provide information crucial to the sinking. After the necessary information had been gathered, two DGSE divers beneath the Rainbow Warrior attached two limpet mines and detonated them 10 minutes apart. The first bomb went off 11:38 P.M., creating a large hole about the size of an average car. Agents intended the first mine to cripple the ship so that everybody would be evacuated safely off when the second mine was detonated. However, the crew did not react to the first explosion as the agents had expected. While the ship was initially evacuated, some of the crew returned to the ship to investigate and film the damage. A Portuguese-Dutch photographer, Fernando Pereira, returned below decks to fetch his camera equipment. At 11:45 P.M., the second bomb went off. Pereira drowned in the rapid flooding that followed, and the other ten crew members were either safely evacuated on the order of Captain Peter Willcox or were thrown into the water by the second explosion. The Rainbow Warrior sank four minutes later.

  

 Fernando Pereira

  

Operation Satanique was a public relations disaster. France, being an ally of New Zealand, initially denied involvement and joined in condemnation of what it termed to be a terrorist act. The French Embassy in Wellington denied involvement, stating that "the French Government does not deal with its opponents in such ways".

After the bombing, the New Zealand Police started one of the country's largest police investigations. Most of the agents escaped New Zealand but two, Captain Dominique Prieur and Commander Alain Mafart – posing as married couple 'Sophie and Alain Turenge' and having Swiss passports – were identified as possible suspects with the help of a Neighborhood Watch group, and were arrested. Both were questioned and investigated, and their true identities were uncovered, along with the French government's responsibility. Both agents pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on November 22, 1985.

France threatened an economic embargo of New Zealand's exports to the European Economic Community if the pair was not released. Such an action would have crippled the New Zealand economy, which was dependent on agricultural exports to Britain.

  

In June 1986, in a political deal with Prime Minister of New Zealand David Lange and presided over by United Nations Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, France agreed to pay NZ$13 million (USD$6.5 million) to New Zealand and apologise, in return for which Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur would be detained at the French military base on Hao Atoll for three years. However, the two agents had both returned to France by May 1988, after less than two years on the atoll. Mafart returned to Paris on December 14, 1987 for medical treatment, and was apparently freed after treatment. He continued in the French Army and was promoted to colonel in 1993. Prieur returned to France on May 6, 1988 because she was pregnant, her husband having been allowed to join her on the atoll. She, too, was freed and later promoted. The removal of the agents from Hao without subsequent return was ruled to be in violation of the 1986 agreement.

Three other agents, Chief Petty Officer Roland Verge, Petty Officer Bartelo and Petty Officer Gérard Andries, who sailed to New Zealand on the yacht Ouvéa, were arrested by Australian police on Norfolk Island, but released as Australian law did not allow them to be held until the results of forensic tests came back. They were then picked up by the French submarine Rubis, which scuttled the Ouvéa.

A sixth agent, Louis-Pierre Dillais, commander of the operation, was never captured and never faced charges. He acknowledged his involvement in an interview with New Zealand State broadcaster TVNZ in 2005.

A commission of enquiry headed by Bernard Tricot cleared the French government of any involvement, claiming that the arrested agents, who had not yet pleaded guilty, had merely been spying on Greenpeace. When The Times and Le Monde claimed that President Mitterrand had approved the bombing, Defence Minister Charles Hernu resigned and the head of the DGSE, Admiral Pierre Lacoste, was fired. Eventually, Prime MinisterLaurent Fabius admitted the bombing had been a French plot: On 22 September 1985, he summoned journalists to his office to read a 200 word statement in which he said: "The truth is cruel," and acknowledged there had been a cover-up, he went on to say that "Agents of the French secret service sank this boat. They were acting on orders."

  

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