Investigation“Karachi affair, the endless ordeal” (1/2) In a two-part investigation, “Le Monde” looks back on the attack of May 8, 2002 against employees of French shipyards on mission in Pakistan, which remains a deep pain for the victims and their loved ones. All are convinced of having been deprived of the truth in this issue with a strong political and financial dimension.
The blue gaze above the mask peers, scans. Still wondering. Is it necessary, so many years after the attack in Karachi, Pakistan, on May 8, 2002, to tell this story which devastated his life and that of his relatives? Should we deliver to an unknown woman words contained for nineteen years? In the eyes of Virginie Bled, 46, we read fear and determination. We leave Cherbourg station (Manche).
“Eleven dead, twelve seriously injured, twenty-seven orphans”, used to repeat one of the survivors of the attack, Gilles Sanson. He does not forget the Pakistani victims who were at the fatal moment on Club Road, in the district of the big hotels of Karachi. But he strikes this record, that of the dead and wounded French in the arsenal of Cherbourg like a mantra, to ward off images that haunt him. He is well placed to know that numbers cannot account for suffering, but he knows their meaning intimately: entire families devastated, spanning several generations. They still lack the truth. And justice, despite various trials in recent years.
Eleven names on a black stone
In the paper cups, the coffee has cooled too quickly. Noisy seagulls swirl over the icy green water of the great channel, traversed by ripples. On this side, to the right looking out over the Channel, the Cité de la mer stretches out over the jetty. The largest Art Deco building in France accommodated four trains and two liners simultaneously, in the 1930s. The Cherbourg transatlantic station has become an oceanographic museum and a “play park”, closed for many months, Covid-19 obliges. On the side of the establishment, in a dock, The Formidable sleeps the sleep of the righteous. The first nuclear missile launcher submarine (SNLE), built and launched in Cherbourg in 1967, was the General’s darling. We are still visiting him.
You almost have to look for the black stone, standing in the greenery, three steps away. The names of the eleven dead of Karachi appear there, under the stylized figure of a submarine, as if caught by the abyss. Cédric Bled, the first in the alphabetical list, was also the youngest, 27 years old. It was the love of Virginie, her husband, the father of their daughter, Mathilde.
All these men died on commissioned service for their country thousands of kilometers from home, in a suddenly torn military bus, without their family ever knowing for sure why, or suspecting the worst: Jean-Michel Chevassut, 42 years old, Jean-Pierre Delavie, 34 years old, Thierry Donnart, 38 years old, Claude Drouet, 50 years old, Bernard Dupont, 42 years old, Pascal Groux, 43 years old, Jacques Laurent, Daniel Lecarpentier, Jean-Yves Leclerc, all three 51 years old, and Pascal Leconte, born on May 7, who was 39 years old the day before the attack.
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