In 1973, at just 19 years of age, Anna Horne sailed with three others to Mururoa to oppose nuclear testing by France. But rather than witnessing a bomb being detonated, she watched the skipper being beaten and detained by French commandos. Anna observed the events through the lens of a camera and the pictures she took were smuggled out to the world, causing international outrage. Anna's experience became part of the case that New Zealand and Australia took to the International Court of Justice challenging the legality of the French testing programme. On 27 January 1996, 23 years since the Vega's protest, the last nuclear test explosion by France was conducted at the Mururoa and Fangataufa Atoll test site. It's believed at least 175 explosions took place in all, over 40 of them atmospheric.

In 1973, at just 19 years of age, Anna Horne sailed with three others to Mururoa to oppose nuclear testing by France. But rather than witnessing a bomb being detonated, she watched the skipper being beaten and detained by French commandos.

Anna observed the events through the lens of a camera and the pictures she took were smuggled out to the world, causing international outrage.

"I was up forward with David's Nikon 35mm camera. I could hear Mary screaming as I watched her through the view-finder of the camera. I was afraid of David's rage if I missed the shots of the French soldiers." As Mary Lornie's video camera had been thrown overboard by a commando, Anna's film was the only other record of what happened that afternoon on-board the Vega. She says there anxious moments waiting to discover whether she had in fact captured any images. When they were released, she felt relief that the violence had indeed been captured. "It certainly turned the whole thing on its head and I think that was the beginning of the end really for the atmospheric testing and of course this violence hit home to people...the French were mighty pissed off with us."

2600112 "It felt quite good as a little Kiwi chick to get one over them"

A priest blesses the Vega in Whangarei, before it sets sail for Mururoa. Image courtesy of Anna Horne

The 11.5 metre ketch Vega (Greenpeace III) was built and launched in Whangarei in 1949 and is said to have been made from a single large Kauri log by one of New Zealand's finest boat builders, Alan Orams. Her history with Greenpeace began in the late 1960s when she was purchased by Canadian David McTaggart, a former chairman of Greenpeace International. …

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