Death of a Rainbow Warrior

Fernando was below deck aboard the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour when two bombs, attached by agents of the French secret service, ripped apart the hull.

He was knocked unconscious by the second blast and drowned.

A father of two young children and a freelance photographer for Greenpeace, he had just turned 35. Fernando had joined the Warrior in Hawaii, having signed on for a six-month tour that  was supposed to take him from the Marshall Islands, in the North Pacific, to Moruroa, in the South Pacific.

The Warrior's mission was to expose the governments of the United States and France for their nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific Islands - testing that recklessly endangered the environment and the health of the islands and their people.

Residents of Rongelap, in the Marshall Islands, had been contaminated by radioactive fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. They asked Greenpeace to help them relocate to a new home.

The difficult relocation was completed by May 10, and the crew celebrated their first day off after an emotional journey. They also celebrated Fernando's birthday with a special gift: a T-shirt that proudly said, "Rainbow Warrior Removals Inc." and carried the signatures of everyone onboard.

A Man of Peace

Born in Portugal, Fernando had fled his native country to avoid joining the military and having to fight in the then-dictator Salazar's war in Angola. After transiting through Spain, where the Franco government was less than amenable to political refugees, he hitched and walked all the way to the Netherlands. There he found what he was looking for and embarked on a career as a photographer. He also married a Dutch women, became a Dutch citizen and had two children: Marelle and Paul.

"I'll be Home Soon"

His daughter Marelle, remembers waving her father farewell at the airport three months earlier. Eight-years-old at the time, she remembers him saying, "just take care of your mom, I'll do my trip and I'll be home soon." She couldn't have known then that it would be the last time she would see him. She thinks of him "disappearing into the big entrance doors," and recalls taking a walk in the forest "and seeing the planes that flew over and me and my brother waving to every plane because that could be the one my dad was in."

When asked about her memories of Fernando, Marelle's face lights up, "I remember me and my brother walking in the forest, climbing trees. In Holland we have snow and ice in winter, and the place where we lived at the time, behind our house, we had a little river and that would freeze over. And he would take us ice skating, being Portuguese and all, but he could skate."

"I remember him dressing us and taking us to school. He had a car, an Alpha Romeo. I'll never forget that. That is one of my memories of my father. Him being sweet and polite to us, him taking time to have dinner, doing nice things in the weekend but also being away and working."

"As an 8-year-old girl, I remember that my dad was a member of Greenpeace and he was fighting for a good cause; that they were fighting and protesting for the seals to stay alive. I remember very well that Greenpeace had actions and protesting on Antarctica and painting the fur on the seals, so I knew in a large way what my dad was doing and making pictures."

Shattering News from the Other Side of the World

"During the summer we went to camp, we were playing a game with a ball with my friends, then one of our teachers came up to me and asked if I could join her because she had something to tell me. My mom was there and I thought that was pretty strange. I didn't know what to think of that, so I walked with her to where my mother was sitting with an uncle of mine, but walking over there I got a strange feeling, I don't know how to explain that, but I knew something had to be wrong with my dad. It had to be; otherwise my mom would have come over there and talked to me. By the time that I got to my mom she was in tears."

"The moment that she said he was missing, all of the pieces fell together and I cried together with my mom. We packed our bags that afternoon and she took me home. We waited for the news which eventually was of my dad turning up dead."

"No one was Supposed to Die"

The French secret agents of the DGSE were under orders from Paris to "neutralize" the Rainbow Warrior and prevent Greenpeace from leading any more protest voyages to Moruroa to interfere with France's nuclear testing program. Fernando was not supposed to die that night. No one was supposed to die, according to Captain Dominique Prieur, one of the two agents who were captured by the New Zealand police immediately after the attack. In her book about the bombing, she wrote: "It would have been much easier to bomb the Rainbow Warrior while she was out at sea. But from the start we had one unbreakable rule: no-one should be killed!"

Prieur and fellow agent major Mafart were tried and convincted of manslaughter and arson. Prieur later lamented: "We were terrified and appalled… We hadn't come here to kill anyone, least of all one of these inoffensive environmental activists. For me, the death of a man was very hard to take."

Marelle, visibly shaken with anger, said of Prieur, "If she did not agree with the mission she could have said no and not participated in it. Just like my father who fled Portugal so he did not have to fight in Angola. My dad did not agree with the war, he stood for himself and decided not to participate. Prieur could have said to the DGSE, 'no, I'm not going to participate, people could get hurt.'"

"I still do not understand how they could have proceeded, if they didn't agree with the action. My anger toward France and the agents is still understandable for me and my family. How can you bomb a boat in another country in peace time?"

"They got back to France and were Treated like Heroes."

After repeated denials of any involvement in the bombing despite mounting and compelling evidence to the contrary, President Mitterrand's government eventually accepted responsibility, even promising "justice at the highest level." However, as Marelle observes 20 years later, "A lot of the secret agents got away with it. They only prosecuted Dominique [Prieur] and Alain [Mafart], who got sentenced to a little island, they were supposed to be there for a decade but they were only there for three years. Then they got back to France and were treated like heroes. They received medals, even. That for my family was unbelievable, incomprehensible; you are rewarded for killing people, for killing a person who was just doing his job."

Every Day, Every Year, you Find a Bit More Closure

"What I'd like to see happen now…Justice for us, justice for the family if they could only could tell the truth that would be a beginning, and Mitterrand promising justice on the highest level, if that is justice, letting so many French agents escape jail, then that is not justice, not in our eyes, not in my family's eyes and I hope not in the world's eyes. And, it is never too late for justice."

 "My family and I pretty much accepted what happened in '85 but that does not mean we are going to forgive and forget. Every day, every year, you find a bit more closure, you are able to live with the past a little better but that does not mean that you do not think of your dad on a daily basis. Or weep over him some days and remember the happy thoughts you had about your dad, my dad, my brother's dad."





Photo ©Greenpeace/Beltra