The cables and also Hammarskjöld's private letters depict a strong UN leader guided by the UN charter, with a strong sympathy for the emerging new nations – as well as a dislike of the big powers' arrogance and hypocrisy. He won diplomatic victories over France and the UK in the Suez crisis in 1957 and over France in the Bizerte crisis in 1961 and he gave moral support to newly independent Guinea. After this, President Charles de Gaulle withdrew France's support for the UN Congo operation, boycotted the security council meetings and even encouraged French mercenaries to join the Katanga forces.
My own conclusion, after adding the new witnesses' statements and the archive information to previously published documents, is that Hammarskjöld's DC6 was brought down and that the motive was to maintain the west's control over Katanga minerals. It is significant that the UN, after Hammarskjöld's death, has become less of a challenge to the big powers.
"I have no doubt Dag Hammarskjöld's plane was brought down" by Göran Björkdahl
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/17/dag-hammarskjold-crash-goran-bjorkdahl
Göran Björkdahl has interviewed eye-witnesses who were afraid to come forward in 1961
It is ironic that France and the UK were the ones who proposed Hammarskjöld's candidature to the UN secretary-general post in 1953, probably seeing him as a skilled bureaucrat but politically weak. It is clear that none of the big powers wanted such a forceful UN leader, guided by principles and impossible to control.
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