Murder in the Pacific

Citizens of democratic countries tend to pride ourselves in our nations' conduct in international affairs. Extra-judicial killing our enemies on foreign territory is something we simply don't do: it's immoral, bullying and stupid. But in the 1980s the French government bombed a Greenpeace ship docked in Auckland harbour en route to protesting nuclear testing in the Pacific. One activist was killed, and the small state of New Zealand was forced to face up to the fact that a supposedly friendly power had carried out a murder in its waters. And this documentary is a good one, featuring interviews with the surviving crew, the police, and even the French agents who carried out the crime. Some of the latter were caught (but later traded back to France); some were arrested (but on Australian territory) and released without trial; the bombers themselves successfully slipped out of the country. Shamefully, the French government has never apologised for its act. And the nuclear testing that Greenpeace were opposed to feels equally indefensible: yes, there was a cold war on, but this was all about the projection of power, and damn the consequences for the people who lived in the islands where the testing took place.