2019-01-17 08:00:00
Uncomfortable UN boss: Dag Hammarskjöld was a thorn in the side of many powerful people. Photo: dpa
September 1961: A plane crashes over the Zambian town of Ndola. On board: former UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. There are still rumors regarding his death to this day. Now comes clarity to the tragedy.
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Johannesburg – If the authors of a documentary film have their way, one of the most stubborn mysteries in contemporary history has been solved – the circumstances that led to the death of the legendary UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld more than 57 years ago.
In their film, which will premiere next week at the Sundance Festival in the US state of Utah, the Danish filmmaker Mads Brügger and the Swedish private detective Göran Björkdahl come to the conclusion that the Belgian mercenary pilot Jan van Risseghem destroyed the machine of the UN Chiefs shot down on a night approach to Ndola Airport in Zambia on September 18, 1961. The two Scandinavians rely on the statements of a friend of the pilot, who died eleven years ago: In conversations, Pierre Coppens claims to have learned from his colleague that he shot down the Swedish diplomat’s DC6. “Sometimes you have to do things that you don’t like to do,” van Risseghem, who trained as a pilot in England, is said to have said.
The colonial powers wanted the raw materials
It became increasingly clear that the charter plane called the Albertina did not crash, but rather was shot down. Shortly following the four-engine plane crashed in what was then the British colony of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), British investigators spoke of pilot error as the cause of the accident. But meanwhile it turns out that London had an interest in covering up the incident. The British government is still refusing any cooperation, complained Tanzania’s former Chief Justice, Mohamed Othman.
The reason: Dag Hammarskjöld had tried to find a solution to the conflict surrounding the separation of the Katanga province from the newly independent Congo. However, the Western powers – above all Great Britain, the USA and Belgium – supported the controversial separatist leader Moïse Tshombe, from whom they promised unhindered access to the uranium and cobalt deposits in the region. Hammarskjöld, on the other hand, campaigned decisively for the unity of the Congo.
Eyewitnesses spoke of a fireball
On September 17, 1961, the then 56-year-old UN chief and close associates took off on a secret night flight from the Congolese capital Leopoldville (today Kinshasa) to Ndola to meet Tshombe there. Ten minutes following midnight, the Albertina appeared over Ndola, but crashed into a wooded area nine kilometers from the airport. Like Hammarskjöld, almost all of the occupants died on impact, with a bodyguard succumbing to burns days later.
Eyewitnesses later recalled a second plane and a fireball in which the Albertina was already enveloped before it crashed. While researching her book “Who killed Hammarskjöld?”, the British author Susan Williams also tracked down US secret service agent Charles Southall, who was stationed in Cyprus at the time. It’s burning. It crashes”, wants to have heard.
These details agree with the stories of van Risseghem. As a mercenary pilot hired by Tshombe, he was ordered to shoot down the Albertina without knowing who was on the charter plane. Experts agree that definitive confirmation of the Albertina’s downing can be found in the archives of Western intelligence agencies. So far, however, both London and Washington have persistently blocked the publication of their “top secret” classified documents.
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