Dag Hammarskjöld: evidence suggests UN chief's plane was shot down

[Magda Hassan]

Then they can move on to investigate Olaf Palme's murder too.

[Magda Hassan]

What Does the UK Know About the Mysterious Plane Crash That Killed a UN Secretary-General?

By Katie Engelhart
July 24, 2015 | 2:10 am On the evening of September 17, 1961, a plane fell out of the sky in British-ruled Northern Rhodesia, known today as Zambia. According to meteorology reports, the night was clear and calm.
On board the DC-6 airliner was the 56-year-old United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld who was on his way, under the cover of night, to negotiate an urgent ceasefire.
The warring parties were many and varied. On the one side was the then Republic of Congo, which had just declared independence from Belgium, and its anti-colonial supporters. On the other side were secessionist forces in the province of Katanga backed by mining executives, reams of mercenaries, and some high-up officials within American and European governments, all of whom were fighting to see Africa's colonial order maintained. Katanga had become a post-colonial maelstrom.
The stakes were high: in no small part because masses of radioactive uranium had been found in Katanga. Indeed, uranium from Katanga was used in the nuke that American forces dropped on Hiroshima. In 1961, in the thick of the atomic Cold War, the American government was desperate to prevent the Soviets from getting any of it.
But back to Secretary-General Hammarskjöld. His plane never landed. It crashed in the thick bushlands near Ndola and the youngest-ever UN secretary-general died.
In 1961 and 1962, the Rhodesian government claimed that Hammarskjöld and his fellow passengers had perished on impact in a crash caused by pilot error. But a 1962 UN inquiry reached an open verdict and would not rule out sabotage.
All along, eyewitnesses disputed the official version of events. Several locals reported seeing two aircraft in the sky before the crash, with light or fire transferring from the smaller plane to the larger plane. Others claimed that they had visited the crash site and seen bullet holes in the aircraft.
And so opened one of the great, unsolved mysteries of the Cold War era.
Last week, the United Nations published a much-anticipated inquiry into the crash and the deaths of 16 passengers. In the report, UN investigators said that they had found "significant new information" supporting the theory that Hammarskjöld's plane was downed by "aerial attack or other interference."
The report followed months of investigative work. A three-person "Independent Panel of Experts" combed through historic archives and interviewed handfuls of experts, and traveled to Zambia to speak with 12 living eyewitnesses to the crash. The report offered no conclusive findings, but it did cast doubt on official versions of events to the delight of conspiracy-minded Hammarskjöld watchers.
In a letter dated July 2, current UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon personally recommended a further investigation into the incident: "This may be our last change to find the truth."
The leading theory is that Hammarskjöld's plane was shot down, by opponents of his anti-colonial stance in Africa. Perhaps the shooters were mercenaries fighting for Katanga on behalf of Belgium. Or perhaps, they were employees of rich European mining companies that had lucrative stakes in the Katanga province and feared losing their concessions.
Other think the crash was the product of great power machinations. In 2013, an international commission of distinguished jurists, chaired by the Hammarskjöld Inquiry Trust, reviewed evidence "that a group representing a number of European political and business interests [had] wanted the secretary-general's plane diverted from Ndola... in order to persuade him of the case for Katanga's continued independence."
1961, after all, was a time of continental reinvention that had been long anticipated, but bitterly resisted, by Europe's moribund colonial powers. Everyone wanted a piece of the post-colonial break-up and parts of Africa, including the Congo, had become proxy battlegrounds for larger, Cold War disputes. Hammarskjöld, who supported independence for African states, was making life difficult for Europe's collapsing colonies.
But absolute truth may prove illusive in this instance, at least for Mr. Ban. A number of UN member states including the US, UK, Belgium, and South Africa will not play ball with UN investigators. Namely, these member states have refused to hand over historic government documents, which could shed light on the long-ago crash.
The US has already been singled out by critics who allege that it is covering up evidence about the CIA and NSA's former involvement with Katanga secessionists.
Thus far, the UK has largely escaped scrutiny despite the fact that it too has refused to hand over uncensored state files.
This is troubling to UN investigators, especially given that newly discovered historical documents place at least one British intelligence agent in the Ndola area at the time that Hammarskjöld's plane came down.

British Consul Dunnett to Michael Wilford, April 30 1962, Ref: FO 371/161549, held at The National Archives, Kew.
On April 27, the UN Hammarskjöld's panel wrote to the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), asking whether the British government had any undisclosed information that might aid its investigation.
On June 10, two days before the panel concluded its work, the FCO replied with a sparsely worded email, explaining that it had "co-ordinated a search across all relevant UK departments. None of these departments has identified any pertinent material."
But what does "relevant" mean?
And, importantly, were the British intelligence agencies MI5, MI6, and UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) included in the "search"?
VICE News contacted the FCO, asking for further clarification. But an FCO spokesperson would say only: "It is the longstanding policy of successive British governments not to comment on intelligence matters." The UK Home Office also refused to comment, referring VICE News back to the FCO.
The thing is, nobody in Britain comments on intelligence matters.
In the UK, intelligence and security agencies do not fall under the Freedom of Information Act so it is impossible to compel the agencies to release information to the public. By contrast, the American CIA, FBI, and NSA can be subject to Freedom of Information requests. In fact, MI5 and MI6 do not even have press offices that can answer queries from journalists.
VICE News also contacted the GCHQ, which would not comment on whether it had been included in the Hammarskjöld's panel search. But the department did invite VICE News to submit a Freedom of Information request on the matter, so that GCHQ could formally decline the Freedom of Information request, on the grounds that GCHQ is not obliged to respond to Freedom of Information requests.
Related: Here's What the British Government Has Been Hiding
Among the British documents that are of interest to UN officials is a report from a British High Commission official and MI6 official Neil Ritchie, dated September 17, 1961. In the report, Ritchie describes how he personally transported a Katanga leader to Ndola to meet with Hammarskjöld.
The document, which was discovered by historian Dr. Susan Williams in a private archive at the University of Essex, does not reveal the cause of the crash but it does prove that UK intelligence was working in the area at the time and keeping records of its work.
The UN panel was also interested in six slim files that are held at the UK National Archives, which have been publicly released, but with redactions. One is titled: "Enquiry into circumstances of crash of aircraft carrying Dag Hammarskjöld, UN secretary-general 1962." Another is titled: "Activities of mercenaries in Belgian Congo 1961."
The UN asked for uncensored versions of the documents, but the FCO said declined: "For security-related reasons."
At the same time, Foreign Office officials insisted that "the total amount of information withheld is very small."

British Consul Dunnett to Michael Wilford, April 30 1962, Ref: FO 371/161549, held at The National Archives, Kew.
In 1960 one year after nationalist riots swept Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) the Congo, a long-time Belgian colony, declared independence.
But a month later, the secessionist leader Moise Tshombe proclaimed independence in the province of Katanga. Europeans began to flee the region and floods of mercenaries arrived.
This is where alliances get muddled. The UN voted to send troops into the region to maintain law and order. Hammarskjöld was sympathetic to Congolese independence aspirations, as were many Western powers at least officially. But powerful elements within the US, Belgium, and other European states backed the Katanga separatists: with the hope that Katanga might act as a buffer and halt the southward spread of African nationalism.
The mining behemoth Union Minière du Haut Katanga (now Umicore) also backed Katanga as it was anxious to keep hold of the region's vast uranium and cobalt deposits.
So when Hammarskjöld's plane came down, many around the world suspected foul play even if they couldn't decide quite who was acting foully, and why.
The wildest of rumors emerged. One suggested that the plane had been attacked with help from the Romanian Embassy in Leopoldville, on the orders of the Russian KGB. Another claimed that Hammarskjöld survived the initial plane crash, but then was assassinated by European mercenaries.
Much of the UN panel report dismisses these claims as having "nil" probative value.
But the UN report addresses other theories with more cautious language: describing them as impossible to prove but also unwise to dismiss notably, the claim that Hammarskjöld's plane was shot down by a Belgian mercenary known as the "Lone Ranger" who was committed to thwarting the UN's anti-colonial efforts. Belgium, after all, was at risk of losing its entire colonial prize.
Another theory put forward in letters that were allegedly written by a clandestine South African mercenary agency, and released by the South African government in 1998 purports that South Africa had carried out a determined operation to "remove" Hammarskjöld from office. The plot, known as Operation Celeste, allegedly had support from then CIA director Allen Dulles, who promised "full cooperation from his people," in addition to the Belgian Mining company Union Miniere. But the UN panel was unable to confirm the veracity of the documents: in part, because South Africa did not respond to the investigators' request for help.
Related: What would you do if you could censor your past? A visit to the UK's secret archives.
The reinvestigation into Hammarskjöld's death did not pick up pace until 2011, when British historian Susan Williams published a book called Who Killed Hammarskjöld? This contended that the original inquiry into the plane crash, carried out by the Rhodesian government, amounted to a cover-up. And it presented new evidence on the case.
After the book was published, an independent commission of legal experts concluded that there was "convincing evidence" that the plane had been shot down.
In 2013, that commission chastised the US for withholding relevant documents from international investigators. The commission insisted that it was "highly likely" that the NSA and CIA had been monitoring local and regional radio traffic on the night that the plane went down.
But when the commission filed a Freedom of Information request for NSA intercepts, the request was denied.
Two former US government officials also accused Washington of withholding evidence. One of them, navy commander Charles Southall, was working at an NSA installation in Cyprus on the night of the crash and he said he overheard radio transmissions suggesting that Hammarskjöld's plane had been subjected to an aerial attack.
On the night of the crash, Southall testified, a senior officer contacted him "at about midnight" and asked him to return to the communications facility where he worked, to witness "something interesting."
The new UN panel also points a finger at US uncooperativeness. Notably, UN investigators have revealed that Hammarskjöld's Swiss-made CX-52 cipher encryption device may have been bugged by the NSA via collusion with the device's Swiss manufacturers. This would have provided the US government with access to Hammarskjöld's travel arrangements on the night of his death.
Related: Exclusive: The UK Has Just Unearthed New 'Top Secret' Colonial-Era Government Files.
None of this bodes well for the UN. After all, it cannot legally compel member states to hand over government files.
In fact, according to David Wardrop of the United Nations Association, a charity that analyzes UN activity, the UN has historically struggled with document sharing. For instance, Wardrop said, "there isn't a proper library of information at the UN" that gathers documents from prior peacekeeping missions to shed light on lessons learned.
"Ban Ki-moon," argued Wardrop, "will have great difficulty in persuading states" to hand over Hammarskjold files, since nations generally resist intelligence sharing schemes.
But he will try. Early this month, Ban tasked UN Legal Counsel Miguel de Serpa Soares with pressing member states to reveal Hammarskjöld files.
Until they do, the idea that Hammarskjöld was murdered will be hard to put to rest especially since the theory has, at times, been advocated at the highest government levels.
Soon after Hammarskjöld's crash, US President Harry Truman reportedly told the New York Times that the secretary-general had been "on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said 'when they killed him.'"
This summer, representatives from the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Missouri told UN investigators that they have no documents that could explain Truman's comments.
https://news.vice.com/article/what-does-...ewstwitter

[Paul Rigby]

The Truth Perspective: Interview: Paul Henry Abram on spying for NSA, hearing the shoot-down of Hammarskjold's plane

This week on the Truth Perspective, we interviewed Paul Henry Abram. On the night of Dag Hammarskjold's death in September, 1961, Paul was stationed with the NSA on the Greek island of Crete. Trained in Russian, he regularly monitored communications at the base. That night, he was monitoring radio signals relating to Hammarskjold's flight over the Congo into Northern Rhodesia. What he heard next was shocking: the plane had been shot down.

In 2014 Abram gave his testimony to the Hammarskjold Commission and the UN investigators tasked with following up on its evidence. On the show, he told us the full story, including how he came to work for the NSA, the kind of work he did, and what exactly he heard that fateful night: radio transmissions explicitly indicating that U.S. ground troops took down the plane. Paul eventually left the Air Force in 1963 and began to study law, which he practiced until his retirement in 2004. His memoir Trona, Bloody Trona covers his involvement in "labor's bloodiest struggle since the Embarcadero Strike of 1934".

Following our interview with Abram, SOTT editor Brent joined us for the first installment in a new feature: the Police State Roundup, with the latest stories of police brutality, murder and corruption. We ended the show with a discussion of the infamous 28 pages from the Joint Inquiry into 9/11 report, and what's going on beneath the surface regarding Saudi Arabia's alleged role in 9/11 and their recent rejection of the plan to freeze oil production.

Brought to you by the SOTT Radio Network and SOTT, your one-stop source for independent, unbiased, alternative news and commentary on world events, the Truth Perspective and Behind the Headlines broadcast every Sunday at 12 pm Eastern.

Running Time: 01:59:44

http://www.sott.net/article/316997-The-T...olds-plane

[Peter Lemkin]

Just a few days ago the South African Intelligence Agency came across files showing that Apartheid S.A. participated in the Hammarskjold assassination for the CIA and others. Waiting for these to be released! Not surprised. S.A. was used as a CIA cut-out often.

Newly* discovered documents revive claim that Dag Hammarskjold may have been killed by South African agents backed by the CIA.

• [*=left]BY COLUM LYNCH
  [*=left]AUGUST 1, 2016
  [*=left]COLUM.LYNCH
  [*=left]@COLUMLYNCH
  [*=left]
  [*=left][email=?subject=Check%20out%20this%20story%20on%20Foreign%20Policy&body=U.N.%20to%20Probe%20Whether%20Iconic%20Secretary-General%20Was%20Assassinated%20-%20https%3A%2F%2Fforeignpolicy.com%2F2016%2F08%2F01%2Fu-n-to-probe-whether-iconic-secretary-general-was-assassinated%2F][/email]
  

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki*-moon will propose reopening an inquiry into allegations that Dag Hammarskjold, one of the most revered secretaries-general in the organization's history, was assassinated by an apartheid-era South African paramilitary organization that was backed by the CIA, British intelligence, and a Belgian mining company, according to several officials familiar with the case.
The move follows the South African government's recent discovery of decades old intelligence documents detailing the alleged plot, dubbed Operation Celeste, that was designed to kill Hammarskjold. In a recent letter to the United Nations, South African authorities said the documents have been transferred to their Justice Ministry so U.N. officials could review them, according to diplomatic sources. The South African Mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment. The CIA has previously dismissed allegations that it was behind Hammarskjold's death as "absurd and without foundation."
This new information (the discovery of which has not previously been reported) is surfacing more than a year after a U.N. panel of experts, chaired by Tanzanian Chief Justice Mohamed Chande Othman, wrapped up a wide-ranging review of fresh evidence that had emerged in the years following the mysterious 55-*year-old air tragedy. The panel urged the secretary-general, **who is already required by a 1962 General Assembly resolution to report on any new evidence shedding light on Hammarskjold's death, to keep pressing governments and their intelligence agencies to disclose or declassify information that could fill gaps in the evidence surrounding the tragedy.
Copies of the South African documents describing Operation Celeste were first made public about 18 years ago, but South Africa was unable to locate the original documents, making it impossible to substantiate their authenticity by subjecting them to ink and paper testing. It remains unclear precisely which documents the South Africans have discovered. But officials familiar with the South African letter to the U.N. said Pretoria confirmed that it had located previously lost documents related to Operation Celeste. The discovery, however, raised hopes that the U.N. could verify whether the documents were in fact produced at the time of Hammarskjold's death.
In September 1961, Hammarskjold was flying on a peace mission from the Congolese capital of Léopoldville, now called Kinshasa, to the Ndola airfield in the British protectorate of Northern Rhodesia, renamed Zambia after independence. Hammarskjold's Douglas DC*6B plane, called "Albertina," crashed into the forest on its approach to the Ndola airfield. Hammarskjold was believed to have been tossed out of the plane upon impact, fatally crushing his chest, spine, and ribs. Fourteen other passengers and crew members died in the crash; a fifteenth, American Harold Julien, succumbed to his injuries a week later. Before his death, Julien told authorities that there had been an explosion in the plane before it went down.
A Rhodesian commission of inquiry concluded in 1962 that the plane had crashed as a result of pilot error a fatal miscalculation of the height of the forest tree line. A subsequent U.N. inquiry could not establish the cause of the crash, leaving open the possibility that Hammarskjold could have died either as a result of an accident or foul play. In the ensuing decades, Hammarskjold's death has spawned a dizzying array of conspiracy theories that claim he was variously shot down by a CIA contractor or American ground troops, shot in the head by a South African mercenary after surviving the plane crash, or killed by a Belgian pilot who claimed to have shot down the plane. The first U.N. official to identify his body swore that he had a bullet sized hole in his forehead. But the autopsy, including X-rays of Hammarskjold's body, undercut such claims.
The U.N. has also largely discarded a host of other claims, including an allegation that a South African mercenary supposedly named Swanepoel had once drunkenly boasted that he had participated in the assassination.
The new evidence is by no means conclusive, officials insisted, noting that it simply represents another piece in a much larger investigative puzzle that might never be solved. And some observers familiar with the investigation cautioned that even if the documents prove to be authentic there remains a possibility that they may have been produced as part of a disinformation campaign by any number of possible sources, from the Soviets to soldiers of fortune seeking to brandish their standing with South African intelligence by claiming responsibility for Hammarskjold's death.
But the U.N. chief felt that it is relevant enough to justify a fresh look at what has turned out to be the most notorious and perplexing cold case in the U.N.'s history. According to U.N. officials, the decision to press forward reflects the influence of Jan Eliasson, a former Swedish foreign minister who currently serves as the U.N.'s deputy secretary-general. But some senior diplomats have questioned whether the latest findings will simply lead the U.N. on a fruitless pursuit of any number of the conspiracy theories, many of them contradictory, associated with Hammarskjold's death.
Next month, Ban will issue a five-page note describing the existence of the new evidence and asking the General Assembly to appoint an eminent person, most likely Othman, to examine the documents and see where they lead. Ban's deputy spokesman, Farhan Haq, declined to comment on the new evidence or the U.N. chief's recommendations. But he told Foreign Policy that "the secretary-general remains personally committed to fulfilling the U.N.'s duty to the distinguished former secretary-general and those who accompanied him, to endeavor to establish the facts after so many years."
The Hammarskjold case gained new momentum in 2012, when a British scholar, Susan Williams, published a book, entitled Who Killed Hammarskjöld? The UN, the Cold War and White Supremacy in Africa, which uncovered new evidence, including eyewitnesses accounts by locals who recalled seeing the plane go down in flames and the testimony of Charles Southall, a retired U.S. naval officer, who said he heard a recording of a pilot boasting about shooting down what appeared to be Hammarskjold's plane. Southall would later express some confusion over whether he had actually heard the radio intercept or read a transcript of it.
"I see a transport plane coming low. All the lights are on,'" Southall, who had been stationed at a NSA listening post in Cyprus, recalled the pilot saying. "I'm going to go down to make a run on it. Yes, it's the Transair DC*6. It's the plane. I've hit it. There are flames. It's going down. It's crashing.'"
Another American, Paul Abram, who claims to have been stationed at an NSA listening post in Iraklion, Greece, told the U.N. panel in May 2015 that he had also heard a radio intercept of an accented non-American on the night of Hammarskjold's death saying: "The Americans just shot down a U.N. plane."
Williams's book spurred the establishment in 2012 of the Hammarskjold Commission, a voluntary body of four international jurists and lawyers, including the Rt. Hon. Stephen Sedley, a British judge; Richard Goldstone, a former chief prosecutor for the U.N. war crimes tribunals in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia; Ambassador Hans Corell, a Swede who served as the U.N.'s top lawyer; and Wilhelmina Thomassen, a former Dutch Supreme Court judge. The commission concluded in its final 2013 report that "there is persuasive evidence that the aircraft was subjected to some form of attack or threat as it circled to land at Ndola." It also concluded that it "is highly likely that the entirety of the local and regional Ndola radio traffic on the night of 17-*18 September 1961 was tracked and recorded by the NSA, and possibly also by the CIA." Their findings prompted the U.N. secretary-general to assemble his own U.N. panel, headed by Othman, to revisit the Hammarskjold case in light of the new evidence.
Researchers say many key players in the region, including white minority governments, had clashed with Hammarskjold, whose U.N peacekeepers had been battling Belgian-backed separatists in the mineral-rich Congolese province of Katanga. Days before Hammarskjold's death, the U.N. launched an offensive against Katanga's separatists as part of an effort to drive hundreds of Belgian officers and European mercenaries out of the country.
The U.N. leader was advocating for Congo's full independence, while Belgium, with some support from Britain, the United States, and South Africa, wanted to ensure that Katanga's riches ** which included the uranium ore used in the production of the atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki** remained in friendly hands and out of the reach of the Soviet Union. Several months earlier, the CIA had played a role in the assassination by Belgian officers and Katangese separatists of Congolese liberation leader, Patrice Lumumba, who was suspected of moving too closely to the Soviet Union.
Hammarskjold, meanwhile, died while en route to discuss a cease-fire with Moise Tshombe, the Belgian-backed leader of Katanga's secession drive. His broader mission was to convince at Tshombe to ditch his foreign backers and make peace with Congo's pro-Western leaders. "All those parties the Belgians, the South Africans, the CIA had a reason for opposing Dag Hammarskjold's mission," Goldstone told FP.
The possible existence of an alleged CIA-backed plot to kill Hammarskjold first emerged in 1998, when the South African National Intelligence Agency turned over a file to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission related to the 1993 assassination of Chris Hani, the leader of the South African Communist Party. But the file also included copies of eight documents detailing internal correspondence among members of the South African Institute for Maritime Research, or SAIMR, an alleged front for a clandestine mercenary organization active in Congo in the early 1960s.
The documents, which contain an alleged exchange between SAIMR's "commodore" and "captain," said Operation Celeste was meant to "remove" Hammarskjold, who had grown increasingly "troublesome." One document, marked "top secret" describes a meeting including representatives of SAIMR and Britain's intelligence agencies, MI5, and the Special Operations Executive, an apparent reference to a British agency that was set up in World War II to carry out espionage and sabotage operations in German-occupied Europe. The documents state that CIA director Allen Dulles concurs that "Dag is becoming troublesome … and should be removed." They also claim that Dulles pledged the support of his people on the ground.
According to the papers, saboteurs were to place six pounds of TNT in the wheel well of Hammarskjold's plane before it departed from Léopoldville, Congo, for the Ndola airport.
The explosives were supposed to detonate when Hammarskjold's pilot retracted the landing wheels. A backup plan described in the papers called for detonating the bomb remotely as it began its descent into Ndola. There is no hard evidence that the plane ever blew up.
The Othman panel gave the theory little credence last year, and pieces of wreckage bore no solid evidence that a bomb brought down the plane. The allegation, according to the panel, was based on copies of the South African SAIMR documents that couldn't be authenticated.
One organization cited in one of the documents, the Special Operations Executive, was believed to have disbanded in the late 1940s. South African authorities could provide no record that a mercenary team existed using that name. The U.N. panel concluded that there was no way to even prove the documents were authentic without subjecting the original paper and ink to testing. The copies, the panel concluded, have "weak probative value" as the U.N. was unable to verify their authenticity or to even establish whether the maritime institute existed. The theory that a bomb was planted in Hammarskjold's plane, the panel concluded, "is weakly supported by the body of new information" it obtained.
The Hammarskjold Commission was even more skeptical. Hans Corell, a Swedish lawyer who served on the Hammarskjold Commission, said the Operation Celeste documents seemed "fishy. We were not impressed." He said the commission concluded that neither the documents, nor their contents, could be considered "trustworthy."
Susan Williams, who has studied SAIMR's activities for years, said it would be a mistake to dismiss the papers' authenticity out of hand. "I certainly would not discount the documents, which is why I went to so much trouble to find them," she said. "Some of them may be what they are purported to be and some of them may not be what they are purported to be."
Goldstone told FP said he continues to have a "strong feeling" that Hammarskjold's death was not an accident. But the commission's hunches about the cause of death differed in one critical aspect from the South African account of Operation Celeste. "Our view was that the bomb being placed in the plane was less likely than it having been shot down," Goldstone said.
He recalled interviewing four eyewitnesses, including three local workers, who said they saw the plane descend in flames. Some said they saw a second plane open fire on Hammarskjold's plane. Goldstone recalled that none of the locals had previously been interviewed by the Rhodesian commission or the U.N. "The Rhodesians tended to dismiss black witnesses as being unreliable," he said. "It was clearly a racist issue."
One of the key obstacles to finalizing the investigation is the reluctance of key powers, principally the United States and Britain, to release documents related to the case.
While Corell was skeptical about the likelihood of the CIA-backed plot described in the Operation Celeste documents, he believes U.S. intelligence agencies are withholding vital evidence that could help resolve the mystery surrounding Hammarskjold's death. Corell said he is particularly troubled by the failure to obtain transcripts of air traffic reports on the night of the tragedy.
The Ndola airport did not record radio traffic on the night of Hammarskjold's death, even though it possessed the technical capability to do so. A British diplomat, Sir Brian Unwin, who was at the Ndola airport on the night of Hammarskjold's death recalled that two American aircraft had been running their engines on the airfield throughout the night of Hammarskjold's death, fueling suspicion that they were monitoring radio traffic.
The United States claims it has no record of Hammarskjold's radio communications that night, despite Southall's claims to the contrary. In its own response to questions from the U.N., the U.S. Mission to the United Nations also said they hadn't found evidence that any American planes were on the tarmac at Ndola that night.
But Corell remains skeptical. "We came to the conclusion that the Americans were listening to everything you could listen to in the air," Corell said. "I'm still suspicious of this. I'm sure they made a transcript of the radio traffic." The failure to close the books on the Hammarskjold case has gnawed at the victims' relatives. Hynrich Wieschhoff, whose father died alongside Hammarskjold, welcomes the U.N.'s renewed interest in the case. But he fears the latest focus on a Operation Celeste may lead to another dead end. Meanwhile, he is growing frustrated with what he sees as the U.N.'s piecemeal approach to the investigation; that is, limiting its investigation to pursuing new facts as they come to light. What is needed, he said, is "a full-fledged investigation" that reviews the complete body of evidence from past and current inquiries. He credited the the U.N. panel for doing a "masterful job" despite its limited resources and time; the panel was only given three months to carry out its work. "The evidence is staler, memories are fading, and individuals are dying," he told FP. "Let's clear the tables, forget about politics, and get an answer."

[Drew Phipps]

Incubus of Intervention, which I received yesterday, mentions "Operation Celeste" on page 12, with a promise of more to come. (Jim D. is going to hate that writing style, i.e. General Walker)

[Peter Lemkin]

http://historyofafricaotherwise.blogspot...st-or.html

lundi 7 février 2011

Dag Hammarskjold, a victim of the West or martyr for peace in Congo?

The final night flight to death.

On 17 September 1961, it is 17 p.m. at the N'Dolo airport in Leopoldville (Kinshasa), the United Nations Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjöld and his diplomatic adviser for Congo entering the DC-6B Albertina, registration SE-BDY Sweden Transair Company. The day before, the aircraft was hit by gunfire from mercenaries in Elisabethville (Lubumbashi) without causing any damage. To thwart a possible attack, a decoy plane, the DC6, 00-RIC had been sent to Katanga by a different route. The flight plans of the aircraft and the route of the plane of the Secretary General of the UN have been modified and kept secret.
Flying the aircraft are six crew members experienced all Swedesh: Masters Hallonquist Per and Nils-Eric Aahréus the first officer Lars Litton, the flight engineer Nils Göran Wilhelmsson, the purser and the operator Harald Noork Radio, Karl Erik Rosén. Besides the Secretary-General, the plane took place ten other passengers: The German-American anthropologist, Heinrich A. Wieschhoff (55 years), Director and Deputy Under Secretary for Political Affairs and Security Council Affairs, Mr. Vladimir Fabry American (39 years), Special Advisor to the officer of the United Nations operation in Congo, American William Ranallo (39 years), attached particular the Secretary-General, Ms Alice Lalande, a Canadian national, secretary of the official responsible for the UN operation in Congo, Sergeant U.S. veteran of the Korean War Harold M. Julien, acting head of security service, O.N.U.C.; French Sergeant French, Serge L. Barrau, security service officer, O.N.U.C.; The NCO Hjetle S.O., Persson P.E., and the soldier of the 11th Swedish Infantry Battalion stationed in Leopoldville (Kinshasa).
Dag Hammarskjöld and his diplomatic adviser to the Congo, the Swedish C. Sture Linner (1917-2010) to consult at the last minute: «I wonder if it is wise for us to leave them both, just as the government of Congo is so shaky. Someone has to control the capital in case of bankruptcy» suggests Dag Hammarskjöld. "So I stayed because I knew that I had in Tshombe not trust!" Reports Sture Linner. He had just escaped death. Dag Hammarskjöld, in the beige suit accompanies the tarmac. Both are given a handshake uncertain. It is the ultimate look! Dag Hammarskjöld back on the plane disappears into the sky towards its Congolese tragic fate in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia).
In the plane, Dag Hammarskjöld's tired, very nervous and prayed in silence."The mission was physically dangerous and politically delicate. Moise Tshombe, the puppet of the Belgians and British were surrounded by a rabble International paid to torpedo all UN efforts to bring peace to Congo", says calmly Sture Linner several years later. Dag Hammarskjöld is committed to fulfill its mission to an end with the signing of a cease-fire with Moise Tshombe!Because he is convinced that if peace fails in Congo is the end of the UN and the beginning of the Third World War!
In fact, 9 September 1961, the garrison of the Irish UN Jadotville (Likasi), high of 84 men under the command of Pat Quinlan, had ordered to go to Katanga by the French mercenary, Michael Clary after a humiliating fight!


The fatal crash and the martyrdom of the apostle of peace!

On September 18, 1961 around midnight, the DC-6B Albertina colors of the United Nations crashed on a hill at 220 km from Lusaka in Zambia after performing rotations around the small airport in Ndola where he was landing.
In the charred wreckage of the aircraft, identifying the United Nations Secretary General, 56 years is simple: he holds in his right hand bloodied his favorite book: "The Life of Jesus" which was slipped into the text his oath April 10, 1953. He succeeded to the Norwegian Trygive Halvedan Lie (1896-1968) who had resigned in December 1952 in controversial circumstances. When placing a control, the latter told him: "You take the most thankless job in the world"
Dag Hammarskjöld Hjamar Agne Carl, son of a former Swedish Prime Minister (1914-1917) and former chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize (1929-1947), born in Jönköping, Sweden September 18, 1905 had just been reelected to a second term September 26, 1957.
The sole survivor, a veteran of the Korean War and American bodyguard of the Secretary-General, Sergeant Harold Julian, severely burned died five days later in hospital after being told the inspector Trevor Wright, Rhodesian police that "the Secretary General of the United Nations at the last minute had given orders to the driver to change destinations."
Why the plane had he refused to identify with the control tower at Ndola? Had he not want to meet Moses Kapenda Tshombe (1919-1969), then a refugee in the mining town of Bancroft (Chililabombwe) south of Kasumbalesa under the protection of former boxing champion who became prime minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Welensky Roy (1907 - 1991) ?
Chairman of Katanga was waiting in Ndola with Jean-Baptiste Kibwe (1924-2008), Vice-President and Finance Minister Evariste Kimba (1926-1966), his foreign minister and some Nnende Odillon.


The assigned diplomat to the impossible investigation Nepal Rishikesh Shaha (1925-2002) ... and the real killers.


For days 180 police officers, investigators and journalists quadrillèrent the ground without finding any evidence of bomb.
According to a plausible hypothesis that has leaked into the medium Katanga, a European mercenary, Lieutenant Robert Gheysels, member of the "Service Action" Tshombe would have slipped inside the plane from the airport to Leopoldville N'Dolo (Kinshasa). He would have forced the pilot to change course, causing the crash.
The objective of Moise Tshombe was to remove and imprison Dag Hammarskjöld in Kolwezi to make him suffer the pangs of exile he lived in Chililabombwe (then Bancroft) and demand the immediate withdrawal without conditions Katanga Peacekeepers O.N.U.C.. Hence the shooting and massacres in the plane.
In 1998, "Commission of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa", chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu has concluded that an attack from documents classified "Secret Defense". It turned out that an explosive was placed in the landing gear burst during landing maneuvers.
The mission to assassinate the Secretary General of the United Nations has been initiated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Maritime Institute of South Africa (SAIMR) and the British security service, Military Intelligence, Section 5 (MI5) with the active complicity of the Union Miniere du Haut Katanga (UMHK) and was codenamed "Operation Heaven". The head of Operation Celeste was none other than the Chief of the CIA, Allan Welsh Dulles (1893-1969) who said "Dag becomes troublesome and should be rejected."
Dulles had sent a telegram to his counterpart in Leopoldville September 24, 1960: "We want to provide all possible assistance for the elimination of Lumumba". Patrice Lumumba had been assassinated 17 January 1961 in Katanga.
Norwegian General Bjorn Egge (1918-2007), who served in the United Nations Force in Congo in 1960 and who first arrived at the accident site and discover the body of the UN Secretary General showed the largest Norwegian newspaper "Aftenpsoten" July 29, 2005, Dag Hammarskjold was a hole in the forehead, which was defaced with spray on pictures of the corpse. Two other crash victims had traces of bullets and the cabin of the plane also contained traces of bullets fired from inside the plane as the Scandinavian journalist, Teddy Lindstön, arrived first at the scene of the accident.
Throw the plane into the grass, he would have survived the accident before being shot dead.
Indeed, a retired mercenary revealed anonymously on the Norwegian TV channel NRK (Norsk Rikskringkasting) have met a South African mercenary, who died in the 90 who had confessed to shooting Dag Hammarskjöld.
Timothy Kankasa, an eyewitness reported seeing a "UFO" projecting "light rays" on the plane just before the crash. His testimony reported by the official UN inquiry and taken up in the London Daily Telegraph of 20 January 1962 was taken seriously and relaunched the debate on UFOs in the United Nations.


Why the DC6 was flying without lights?

In 2007, a friend of Dag Hammarskjöld gathered several testimonies proving that the plane was shot down by a Belgian flying a jet Potez Fouga CM170 Aerospace-Magister, of French manufacture. The Fouga Magister was flown by the Belgian Jose Magain (d. January 2003).
What justifies the euphoria seen in some quarters Belgian and European Leopoldville to the announcement of the death of Dag Hammarskjöld. Belgium, stripped of its richest colony openly supported the secession of Katanga and insisted on his physical elimination!
Why the Swedish government's investigation did cut short?
Why the United Nations investigation has she not gone further?

Accident? Sabotage?Attack?

The martyr of Peace would it have been a victim of the sympathy of his father Knut Hjalmar Leonard Hammarskjold (1862-1953) to Nazi Germany and he inherited the seat to the Swedish Academy in December 1954?
And if he paid his intervention in the Suez Canal crisis in 1956? Had he not condemn the Franco-British intervention in Egypt due to the use by these states of their veto power?
And if they paid their intervention in the determination of Algeria in September 1960 and the case of the base of Bizerte in Tunisia in July 1961 against the advice of French President Charles De Gaulle (1890-1970) which dealt with the UN to "thing" or the United Nations' so-called United Nations "and did not want that France participates in peacekeeping operations in Congo Peace?
His intervention in Congo was not it also questioned by the Soviet Union?
Upon learning of his tragic death, the former U.S. president from 1945 to 1953, Harry Truman (1884-1972) exclaimed:"They killed him." But will we ever know who he was talking about?
Nicknamed "Mister H" the fervent Christian had not himself predicted his tragic fate by writing in "Milestones":"He who seeks adventure will meet in the measure of his courage. He who seeks the sacrifice be sacrificed, to the extent of its purity."

[Drew Phipps]

The U.N. has also largely discarded a host of other claims, including an allegation that a South African mercenary supposedly named Swanepoel had once drunkenly boasted that he had participated in the assassination.

I hereby officially volunteer my services to the UN to thoroughly investigate this allegation.

[Drew Phipps]

I'm looking forward to the "5 page report" on these new documents, but it should be noted that the story in these South African documents is that a bomb was planted on the plane, whereas the "new" eyewitness testimony, summarized by Williams, supports the idea that the plane was shot down by a second plane.

[Drew Phipps]

Here's a story of interest on this topic:

Herb York, PhD, (1921-2009) was a preeminent scientist in the 1950's. An Ed Teller protégé, he worked on the Manhattan Project, he was the first scientific director at Livermore, and later the first chief scientist at ARPA (which became DARPA). York helped design both a 10,000 megaton hydrogen bomb, the Mirv system, and a 48 pound portable nuclear bomb, a full sized mockup of which prototype he carried in his luggage on a commercial flight to demonstrate it. York was, briefly, the acting US Secretary of Defense, while Robert McNamara was being confirmed. He told Annie Johnson, author of "The Pentagon's Brain," that, one day after JFK's inauguration, he visited the War Room at the Pentagon. The War Room personnel were keeping "special watch" on two situations in the world. One was Laos. The other was the Congo, "where a rebellion was under way in the mineral rich province of Katanga."

Source: "The Pentagon's Brain" by Annie Johnson (2015) pp. 114