Fernando Pereira
| Fernando Pereira | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
10 May 1950 Chaves, Portugal |
| Died | 10 July 1985 (aged 35) |
| Occupation | |
Fernando Pereira (Chaves, Portugal, 10 May 1950 – Auckland, New Zealand, 10 July 1985) was a freelance Dutch photographer, of Portuguese origin, who drowned when French intelligence (DGSE) detonated a bomb and sank the Rainbow Warrior, owned by the environmental organisation Greenpeace on 10 July 1985.
The bombing of the boat had been designed to make the ship unsalvageable. The first smaller bomb bent the shaft, making repair uneconomic. Pereira stayed inside the boat to get his camera and other pieces of equipment. The second, more powerful explosion, designed to sink the boat, caused a huge inrush of seawater that drowned Pereira.
The Rainbow Warrior led a flotilla of yachts protesting against French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia and was about to depart Auckland for a campaign of legal demonstrations in international waters near the French military operational areas at Moruroa Atoll.
The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior lay moored at Auckland's Marsden Wharf on Wednesday, 10 July 1985. It had arrived in New Zealand from Vanuatu three days earlier - a week after President Haruo Remeliik had been assassinated in Palau. Greenpeace campaigners were preparing the former North Sea fishing trawler for the environmental group's biggest-ever protest voyage to Mururoa, one which they hoped would alert the world over France's nuclear testing and radioactive poisoning of the oceans. On board, supporters celebrated the 29th birthday of Steve Sawyer, the American co-ordinator of the Pacific Peace Voyage.
Unknown to the Greenpeace activists, French secret agents Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, had set off in an inflatable dinghy across the 2 km stretch of the harbour from Mechanics Bay. When they arrived, they both swam underwater with the bombs, clamp and rope to the stern of the Rainbow Warrior. Tonel attached the smaller, 10 kg bomb to the propeller shaft. Camurier fixed the clamp on to the keel and ran out a rope to pinpoint a spot to attach the larger bomb next to the engine room.
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