Getting Away With Murder

In 1985 French agents bombed a ship in a New Zealand harbour, sinking the ship and killing photographer Fernando Pereira. Bear in mind the thousands of New Zealanders who gave their lives on French soil to liberate that spineless country in WWII and you get a sense of the anger felt by New Zealanders at the time.

The New Zealand police successfully apprehended two of the agents who were convicted and sentenced to ten years. The cowardly French govenment refused to acknowledge responsibility, though it emerged later as we knew all along that the agents were acting on orders from the French president, Mitterrand.

To the shame of New Zealand, the feeble Labour government (lead by David Lange) handed the the two agents back to the French after serving just one year. Another French suspect was arrested in Switzerland in 1991, but New Zealand dropped extradition proceedings.

Now, twenty years later Segolene Royal is running for the nomination of France's opposition Socialist Party. One of her brothers, Antoine, has said that another brother, Gerard bombed the ship. These bastards are laughing. They've apparently judged that New Zealand is utterly invertabrate. They must be right.

New Zealand prime minister, Helen Clark says, "Were New Zealand now to endeavour to re-open the case, it is likely the French government would consider we were acting contrary to earlier undertakings... The advice I have from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is that France was held to account for its actions at international law"

In other words, "We've already promised to lie down and let you bomb us whenever you want. We got no justice, but we will say that we did because we don't have the self-respect to take a stand anyway."

Damn these cowards piss me off.