Dag Hammarskjold's Plane Crash-The Continuing Search for Truth.

[Pete Mellor]

Dag Hammarskjöld’s Plane Crash:
The Continuing Search for Truth
Next Steps for the UN Commission of Inquiry
 

“From the totality of the information at hand, it appears plausible that an external attack or threat may have been a cause of the crash, whether by way of a direct attack … or by distracting the pilots at the critical stage of preparing to land.”

Justice Mohamed Chande Othman, Eminent Person leading the continuing UN Commission of Inquiry (2022 Report)

School of Advanced Study, University of London
Senate House, London WC1E 7HU
and online

Thursday 29 February 2024

BOOK RESERVATION NOW
Hosted by
The Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICwS),
School of Advanced Study, University of London, &
Westminster United Nations Association (Westminster UNA)

Convenors
Mandy Banton (Senior Research Fellow, ICwS), Susan Williams (Senior Research Fellow, ICwS),
David Wardrop (Chair, Westminster UNA)
————————————————————————————————————
UK time
1020 Open for online attendees to join
1030 Welcome and Introduction
Professor Kingsley Abbott, Director, ICwS
Her Excellency Ms Macenje Florence Mazoka, High Commissioner for the
Republic of Zambia to the UK
1045 Session 1: The Continuing Search for the Truth: Decades waiting
for the answer
Chair: Professor Kingsley Abbott
• Mama Chibesa Kankasa: An important voice from the night of 17-18 September
1961, Ndola
A recording of the late Mama Kankasa, Zambia’s Minister for Women’s Affairs
between 1969 and 1988. Introduced by Dr Stuart Mole, Senior Research Fellow, ICwS
• Conducting a judicious inquiry
Sir Stephen Sedley, Chair, 2012-13 independent Hammarskjöld Commission.
Presentation introduced and read aloud by Dr Stuart Mole
1100 • Sweden’s policy change: from passivity to activism
Dr Henning Melber, Director Emeritus, Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala, and
author, Dag Hammarskjöld, the United Nations and the Decolonisation of Africa
1115 • The UN mission in Congo and the mysterious case of the Fouga jet
Dr Alanna O’Malley, Associate Professor, Institute for History, Leiden University,
author of The Diplomacy of Decolonisation. America, Britain and the United Nations
during the Congo crisis 1960-1964
1135 Q&A
1150 Session 2: Keynote address
Dag Hammarskjöld – The Incomplete File
Ambassador Jan Eliasson, Former UN Deputy Secretary-General and Swedish Foreign
Minister, author of Ord och Handling: ett liv i diplomatins tjänst (Words and Action : a
life in service of diplomacy)
Chair: Dr Ian Martin, Former Special Representative of the UN Secretary General,
author of All Necessary Measures? The United Nations and International Intervention
in Libya
1210 Q&A
1230 Lunch break
1330 Session 3: Statesmen and their incomplete legacy
Chair: Dr Henning Melber
• “That life be conducted with dignity”: Dag Hammarskjöld as statesman and man
of spirit
Dr Roger Lipsey, author of Hammarskjöld. A Life
1345 • U Thant and the Congo 1960-1964: A lost episode in United Nations history
Dr Thant Myint-U, Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Christ’s College, University of
Cambridge; UN Special Adviser on Humanitarian Diplomacy
1400 • The UK imperial archives mountain: A failure to deliver
Dr Mandy Banton, Senior Research Fellow, ICwS
1415 • Hammarskjöld the Peacemaker
The Rt. Revd. Dr Trevor Musonda Mwamba, President, United National Independence
Party (UNIP), Zambia, and former Bishop of Botswana
1430 Session 4: Different routes to the truth: will they lead to it?
Chair: Dr Stuart Mole, Senior Research Fellow, ICwS
• The French officers’ plot against the UN and a hostile OAS cell in Katanga
Maurin Picard, US correspondent, Le Figaro and Le Soir; author, Ils ont tué Monsieur H
1445 • Searching for answers in US government records
Dr Susan Williams, Senior Research Fellow, ICwS, and author, Who Killed
Hammarskjöld? and White Malice
1505 • The investigation into the circumstances of the tragic death of Dag
Hammarskjöld and the party accompanying him: A UN perspective
Stephen D Mathias, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs
1515 • A progress report in joining the dots
David Wardrop, Chair, Westminster UNA; Editor, hammarskjöldinquiry.info
1530 Q&A for sessions 3 and 4
1540 Tea break
1600 Session 5: Round Table: What Next?
Chair: The Rt Hon the Lord Boateng, Former UK High Commissioner to South Africa,
and Cabinet Minister
Joe Lauria, Editor-in-Chief Consortium News, former UN correspondent at The Wall
Street Journal
Dr Henning Melber
Dr Alanna O’Malley
Maurin Picard
1700 Closing Remarks
Lord Boateng and Professor Kingsley Abbott

[Paul Brancato]

Thanks Pete. 

[Paul Jolliffe]

Pete,

This documentary from 2019 gives a pretty good summary for those us (like me) who may be unfamiliar with the basics of the case. It is not exhaustive, but well worth watching (the entire video is available on YouTube with ads).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Case_Hammarskjöld

[James DiEugenio]

This is such an interesting and important case for a lot of  reasons.

For a very long time, the research community pretty much ignored how important the Congo was to JFK.

But if one just considers this:  Lumumba was  assassinated,  Dag H was very likely assassinated, and Kennedy was assassinated while the Congo crisis was playing out, this included the European backed secession of Katanga.

When all three are dead, what happened?  LBJ sends in the Cuban exile pilots to head off what they called a Chinese inspired commie intervention there.  I wish I was kidding but just look at Jonathan Kwitny's book Endless Enemies. 

When we were doing JFK Revisited, Richard Mahoney told me something that was about to break a bit later.  Namely that, at the time, Gullion had told JFK that this plane crash was no accident and that the CIA knew also.  

This is why I think Kennedy was so determined to keep Katanga from breaking away since a man he admired was killed over it.

 

Edited March 1 by James DiEugenio

[John Kowalski]

3 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

This documentary from 2019 gives a pretty good summary for those us (like me) who may be unfamiliar with the basics of the case. It is not exhaustive, but well worth watching (the entire video is available on YouTube with ads).

Seen it and recommend it to anyone who wants to know what happened to him.

[Ron Bulman]

Is the card a deliberate clue?  A calling card?

[James DiEugenio]

I would think so Ron.  I mean how did it get there?

[Pete Mellor]

19 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Pete,

This documentary from 2019 gives a pretty good summary for those us (like me) who may be unfamiliar with the basics of the case. It is not exhaustive, but well worth watching (the entire video is available on YouTube with ads).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Case_Hammarskjöld

Paul, Yes seen it before, and agree with John K., essential viewing.  Dag was assassinated by elements of CIA, MI6, South African & Belgium agencies.

[Paul Jolliffe]

For those who don't watch the documentary "Cold Case: Hammarskjold", here is summary overview of the case against the Dutch pilot accused of shooting down Hammarskjold's airplane:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/12/former-raf-pilot-shot-down-un-chief-dag-hammarskjold-1961-plane

 

[James DiEugenio]

Here is a current article on the case, from the Guardian.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/01/uk-us-obstructing-inquiry-death-united-nations-dag-hammarskjold