I remember the sinking of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior back in 1985. I was sixteen at the time. That's nearly forty years ago so, perhaps understandably, I don't remember much detail about the event. Murder In The Pacific (BBC2/iPlayer, directed by Chloe Campbell) has received good reviews so I thought I'd give it a look.
I must admit though. I wondered how they'd stretch it out for three nearly hour long episodes. Quite easily it turned out. By telling the story pretty much day by day, by using reenactments and dramatisations, with archive televsion footage, with scores of talking heads (from Guardian reporters and other journalists to deck hands and the captain of the Rainbow Warrior - Peter Willcox, from various Auckland police to Michael Hesltine (then UK Defence Secretary) and Malcolm Rifkind (then a junior minister in the Foreign Office) and even a lady from a car rental company), and powered along by Raphaelle Thibaut's dramatic score, Murder In The Pacific was a lot more interesting, and intriguing, than I'd expected.
Even moving in places. Back in 1985, in Jacksonville, Florida, Greenpeace are getting a former North Sea trawler ready for its journey across the world's largest ocean. It's got a predictably hippy vibe on the surface but there are experienced sailors on board too. As well as journalists and photographers to tell the story. The Rainbow Warrior even had a dark room.
The plan was to sail to Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands where the US had been testing nuclear bombs, some larger than those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, since 1946. After being awarded the Marshall Islands following the end of World War II, the US were supposed to be looking after them but, instead, it appeared they were ruthlessly exploiting them.
Though testing had ended by the time the Rainbow Warrior set sail the legacy, in the form of contamination - both of the land and of the people, was still very much in evidence. Nuclear fallout in Rongelap had caused islanders hair to fall out, to suffer severe pain, and every single islander had a scar on their neck where their thyroid had been removed. Some children had suffered stunted growth and one baby was born without a single bone in its body.
We hear US reports from the time that refer to the Marshallese as "amenable savages" but some on Rongelap were savvy enough to get in touch with Greenpeace and ask for their help in moving to another, less contaminated atoll, about one hundred and fifty miles away. Greenpeace agreed.
When, on 17th May 1985, the Rainbow Warrior reached the "extremely beautiful" island they were welcomed with a song and then roughly three hundred of them, and all of their stuff, were relocated to the island of Mejetto. The fishing wasn't good there and the soil wasn't fertile but at least it wasn't full of nuclear contamination. The community remain there to this day.
The next mission for the Rainbow Warrior and her crew was to try and stop the French carrying out a nuclear test in French Polynesia. They'd been testing at Mururoa Atoll since the sixties and, unlike the Americans, were still doing so.
The plan was to head to New Zealand and spend a fortnight there resupplying the Rainbow Warrior before heading to Mururoa. On the 10th July a party was held on the boat for someone's birthday but later that same night two explosions happened on the Rainbow Warrior. Peter Willcox had been asleep but when the bombs woke him up he quickly called for all to abandon ship.
Within forty seconds the Rainbow Warrior had sunk. With one crew member on it. A young parent. Dedicating your life to Greenpeace, Willcox says now, shouldn't mean giving up your life.
It soon became apparent that it had been no accident but who had bombed the Rainbow Warrior? Suspects were many. Greenpeace had made lots of enemies. A homicide inquiry began. A big one. One of the, possibly the, biggest New Zealand had ever seen. It was headed up by "dour Scotsman" DSI Allan Galbraith who, interviewed then and now, comes across as decent and methodical.
The final two thirds of Murder In The Pacific are dedicated to that homicide inquiry and police investigation and it's quite a ride. It takes in dinghies, yachts, camper vans, a motel on Norfolk Island, Interpol, secret agents, and, possibly, state terrorism. Eventually all the evidence starts to point in one very clear direction but will the New Zealand police find the culprits, the killers, and, if so, will they be made accountable?
Murder In The Pacific reminds us of a time when photocopiers and fax machines were impressive and bamboozling bits of kit but it also reminds us of a time when those on the right thought that Greenpeace were KGB stooges either intentionally, or unintentionally, helping the Kremlin. It also shows that powerful people are very hard to bring to justice. More than anything it reminded me of what amazing work Greenpeace did back then. It remains a crime that someone died for trying to make the world a better place.
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