US, UK accused of hindering investigation into UN chief’s plane crash in 1961
UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld, who died in a plane crash in Africa in 1961 en route to talks with Katangan rebels. (Photo by REX)
Press TV – March 2, 2024
Scholars have accused the United States and the United Kingdom of impeding a United Nations investigation into the 1961 airplane accident that resulted in the death of UN chief Dag Hammarskjöld.
Hammarskjöld, a Swedish national, was killed in a plane crash, which was allegedly taken down intentionally on September 18, 1961, while en route to mediate a ceasefire between UN peacekeepers in the Congo and separatists from the breakaway Congolese region of Katanga.
During a conference in London, attendees were briefed by Stephen Mathias, the UN assistant secretary general for legal affairs, on the latest developments in the investigation, which aims to obtain archived documentation from member states.
The attendees expressed concerns that both the US and UK were delaying the transfer of potentially crucial information.
“While Belgium, Sweden and Zimbabwe demonstrated serious efforts, the US and UK responses were wholly inadequate and showed contempt for the UN inquiry,” said the organizers of Thursday’s conference, the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and the Westminster United Nations Association.
“The most recent general assembly resolution to renew the investigation was co-sponsored by 142 UN member states out of 193 – but not by the US and the UK,” said Susan Williams, a researcher whose 2011 book “Who Killed Hammarskjöld” contributed to the reopening of the UN inquiry.
Paul Boateng, the former UK high commissioner to South Africa, said: “The work must continue because it is part of a wider struggle to support democracy, the international rule of law, and the UN, all under increasing threat.”
“There must be no stone unturned to get at the truth. The suspected murder of a UN secretary general is a crime too grave to be obliterated by time.”
The crash resulted in the death of 15 other passengers, and its first inquiry, which was carried out by Rhodesian authorities, concluded that the crash was the result of a pilot error, but the finding was controversial.
People who witnessed the crash on the ground had claimed that they saw another aircraft apart from the chief’s.
At that time, French and British intelligence officers were reported to be near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), where the crash took place, while US intelligence officers were monitoring communications from Cyprus and reported hearing communications consistent with the UN plane coming under fire.
Hammarskjöld was killed amidst a contest for resources in Africa during the post-colonial era, during his last journey, he was en route to a clandestine gathering aimed at mediating an end to the civil conflict in the newly liberated Congo, a nation abundant in minerals and teetering on the edge of collapse.
In the year before, the eastern province of Katanga had declared independence in 1960. While being a major contributor to the country’s economy, this region is renowned for its vast ore deposits, including uranium ore used in the atomic bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima.
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New Book
October 7 “Rape” Hoax Exposed
Norman Finkelstein’s new book debunks Zionist tall tales
By Kevin Barrett – September 13, 2026
Last May, an Israeli commission published a report alleging an organized campaign of rape and sexual abuse by Hamas during its October 7, 2023 concentration camp breakout. The Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children, chaired by Cochav Elkayam-Levy, titled its report “Silenced No More.”
October 7 rape claims, like similar accounts of babies beheaded and roasted in ovens, have long been greeted with skepticism in nations whose media and politicians are not owned and operated by Zionists. Perhaps for that reason, the Israelis felt the need to “document” their rape stories in the Elkayam-Levy report.
But in publishing their “rape” report, the Israelis inadvertently exposed the mendacity of their own assertions. The Commission included many “rape survivor” testimonies that read uncannily like the breathless stories of alleged Holocaust survivors who claim they were raised by wolves, or who, like Anthony Blinken’s stepfather Samuel Pisar, claim to have sneakily walked backward toward the door of the gas chamber and then snuck out right before it was closed and the gas was turned on.
The “Hamas rape” stories are exaggeratedly lurid and full of outrageously improbable or impossible details. But the real problem is that all Hamas fighters wore bodycams recording everything they did—and roughly half of the 3,000 or so who entered Israel were killed, and in most cases their body cams were recovered by Israeli authorities. The Ekayam-Levy Commission says it had access to 10,000 pictures and videos from those bodycams as well as others from Israelis filming with phones. And then there are the Israeli surveillance cameras. If, as the Commission alleges, Hamas pursued a deliberate policy of terrorizing Israelis with widespread sexual violence, obviously there should be, at minimum, hundreds of images and videos documenting these heinous acts.
But there are none. Zero. As Jewish scholar Norman Finkelstein shows in his new book GAZA’S GRAVEDIGGERS: An Inquiry into Corruption in High Places… continue
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