FRENCH DENY BLAME IN GREENPEACE BLAST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201060007-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 19, 2012
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: August 27, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST "T
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000201060007-9
ARTICLE APPEARED
WASHINGTON TIMES
27 August 1985
ON. Xf -
Foreign
French deny blame in Greenpeace blast
By Curtis Cate
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
ber of the DGSE. Direction Generale de
a Securite Exterieure - the rent
equivalent 3f the CIA.
The report seeks to exonerate them of
involvement in the sinking of the Rain-
bow Warrior - blown up by explosives
apparently planted underwater- by say-
ing Maj. Mafart gave up his frogman
activities at the Aspretto training center,
near Ajaccio, Corsica, two years ago,
while Capt. Prieur, who has never been an
underwater specialist, has long suffered
from spinal problems.
The report also identifies three
"yachtsmen" who set sail on June 13
from New Caledonia in the 37-foot sloop
Ouvea and reached New Zealand gn July
7. They are Master Sgt. Roland Verge
(alias, Raymond Velche), Sgt. Gerald
Andries (alias. Eric Andrenc), and Sgt.
Jean-Marie Bartelo (alias, Berthelot). All
are frogmen from the Aspretto training
center and have long served with the
DSGE - in the case of Sgt. Verge, the
Ouvea's skipper, for 11 years.
The three on the yacht, according to
the report, were dispatched to New Zea-
land on a threefold mission: to familiarize
themselves with navigation problems in
the South Pacific: to provide the DSGE
with information about the assembling of
the Greenpeace flotilla: and to study the
possibility of joining such a flotilla in a
boat during a future anti-nuclear test
campaign.
The report does not indicate why all
three men were experienced frogmen.
The document admits that
instructions for various "surveillance"
missions were issued at the highest lev-
els.
the search for information." Later orders -
were issued orally and necessary funds
for a three-pronged soving offensive
were allocated with the approval of Gen.
can au nier, who then ea e the mili-
tary branch of President Francois Mit-
terrand s see a ace secretariat.
Jo ay, Gen. au nter is chief ot sta of
the French army.
French political circles indicate that
Mr. Tricot's report seems primarily
designed to reassure France's secret and
military services that their personnel
will not be sacrificed as scapegoats.
However, other observers said the
report is so full of implausibilities that it
is unlikely to ward off the thunder begin-
ning to break around the heads of the
Mitterrand government.
The French government-published an
official report yesterday exonerating its
intelligence agency of responsibility in
the July 10 bombing of the Greenpeace
trawler, Rainbow Warrior, in Auckland.
New Zealand.
The 29-page report was prepared by
Bernard Tricot, a 65-year-old state coun-
selor who in the 1960s was a senior mem-
ber of Gen. Charles de Gaulle's
presidential staff.
The report admits French intelligence
agents were in the area but says they
were sent to New Zealand solely on a
"mission of surveillance" of Greenpeace
vessels that had been assembling in
Auckland harbor to take part in an anti-
nuclear test demonstration.
(The Associated Press reported that
New Zealand Prime Minister David
Lange said today the official French
report was "incredible and transparent."
He hinted that the French ambassador
may be expelled.
("You cannot have a form of acceptable
association with another country that
sets its spies on you and ignores your
warrants for arrest for murder," he told a
radio interviewer. He said the French
report was full of inconsistencies.
("The French have a remarkable flair
for getting out of New Zealand in a hurry.
They've demonstrated that recently. Per-
haps the same principle could apply to
the diplomat." Mr. Lange said New Zea-
land would seek an official apology from
France. "That is a minimal position;' he
added.)
TWO French intelligence agents were
apprehended by New Zealand police two
days after a double mine blast crippled
the Rainbow Warrior and killed a
Portuguese-born Dutch photographer,
Fernando Pereira. Since July 12, the two
arrested agents have been held in an
Auckland jail, charged with man-
slaughter and sabotage.
The agents, who had claimed to be a
Swiss couple on a tourist trip to New Zea-
land's North Island, now have been for-
mally identified in the Tricot report.
Alain Tlirenge is in reality Maj. Alain
Mafart, while his purported wife, Sophie,
is Capt. Dominique Prieur, also a mem-
The author of these instructions was
the admiral who until recently directed
the French nuclear-bomb testing center
in the South Pacific.
In early March, he sent Defense Min-
ister Charles Hernu a report expressing
fear that the larger Greenpeace vessels
might agree to stay outside of territorial
limits of Mururoa and Fangatofa, while
dispatching smaller boats, filled with
Polynesian "independentists," to invade
the two atolls.
Mr. Hernu then ordered Adm. Pierre
Lacoste, head of the DSGE, to "intensify
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201060007-9