Different Malaysia outcome if UN chief survived?
Published on: Sunday, September 04, 2022
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It notes that Lansdowne himself had “waved the situation away” as being a passenger on an aircraft and therefore in no position to determine his take-off and taxi procedure. It concludes that the UN Commission’s lack of “critical attitude” had caused it to miss out on opportunities to achieve clarity on several important issues.
The Hammarskjold Commission in the end, “respectfully considers that the United Nations would be justified in reopening its 1961-2 inquiry” in order to confirm or refute from the existing evidence, whether the Secretary-General’s plane was brought down by some attack or threat. (The Hammarskjold Report, The Hague, 9 September, 2013).
With the fresh revelations Bengt Rosio the Swedish consul in Leopoldville at the time, wrote further on the possibilities of what could have happened, or, could not have, in all probability. (‘The Ndola Disaster, Final Version’ based on, ‘The Ndola Crash and the Death of Dag Hammarskjold’, Modern African Studies, Vol. 3, 4 December, 1993).
Rosio notes that the Prime Minister of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Sir Roy Wellensky, like many white émigrés in the Congo, was supportive of Katanga and was prepared to intervene to protect Tshombe from the UN, but then concluded that it was unlikely that he did.
Rosio also thought it unlikely that “an aneroid bomb” was planted on the plane in the time available as no such device was found at the crash site. In doing so Rosio could have unwittingly dismissed off hand, the most probable scenario of what happened to the plane; after its repair, a delay was needed to enable the plotters to plant the “aneroid bomb” which would explode when the plane descended to a certain height.
Lansdowne could have, whether deliberately or unwittingly provided the excuse for the delay which also caused the plane to arrive at Ndola late in the night thus making it easier for the plotters to ensure that all evidence of the device could be destroyed or removed before they could be recovered. It could also explain why the wreckage was not ‘discovered’ until more than 15 hours later.
Further, forensic examination of the bodies could not account for the fact that some had been superficially penetrated by “cartridges and percussion caps and bullets” that were not used in the guns carried by the Secretary-General’s bodyguards.
It is also noted that some of the bullets were dated, and not in use at the time. If the plane could only be delayed for a short time it is conceivable that to make up the explosive device old ammunition could have been packed in and the device hurriedly assembled in the short time available.
The second reason could be that it was not intended to blow the plane up in the air. The murder was to be set up to look like an accident.
Witnesses in the area told of hearing two planes. Rosio acknowledges this, but largely discredits them or attributes the sightings to illusions, due to the darkness at the time. It was, however, in evidence that Lansdowne’s plane stayed on the runway ostensibly waiting for the DC6 to arrive. It took off only after the plane was heard to have passed overhead (Deppe, the pilot).
It could have been the second plane that was heard by the witnesses. It is most unlikely that the witnesses could have failed to distinguish a fast flying jet plane with its distinctive noise from an ordinary airplane.
Rosio notes that Counsel for the Crown at the hearing explained Lansdowne’s decision to delay his departure from Ndola as follows:
“It was quite clear that Lansdowne was going to leave Ndola at the last possible moment in order to allay the suspicion of Mr Tshombe.”
If that were the case, Alport’s assumption when the plane did not show up that it might have gone elsewhere, was a weak excuse for closing the airport after that and not have a search conducted for the lost airplane until hours later the next morning especially, notes Rosio, when the British Ambassador in Leopoldville had already informed him that Hammarskjold would arrive in the second of the two UN planes.
The Rhodesian Board noted that the left wing of the plane had dipped and clipped the tops of some trees before it crashed. This could be caused by interference from another plane during its final approach to the runway.
Could the pilot have seen another plane approaching from the front suddenly out of the darkness, and, avoiding it by reflex action caused the plane to crash? Harold Julien, the sole survivor of the crash told of an explosion, of sparks and of the Secretary-General shouting, “Go back” just before the crash.
Rosio puts forward an intriguing theory about the British authorities’ action that night, which he calls “somewhat provocative”; the British were well-informed of the animosity of the mercenaries towards Hammarskjold and had feared that an attempt would be made on his life. For this reason, they had Lansdowne “escort” him, but when they suspected that something had happened to the plane, they kept mum, “for the sake of political expediency, to enable the perpetrators to escape and cover their tracks, [thinking that] everyone on board had died instantaneously.”
In this scenario, the delay in announcing the finding of the wreckage had allowed Belgian mercenaries to reach the site and destroy whatever evidence there was so that the crash could look more like an accident. (Did they leave their ‘calling card’ behind? See below).
It is a compelling version of what had actually happened, and would explain the obviously deliberate delay in searching for the missing plane by the Rhodesian authorities. It could also explain Lansdowne’s curious behavior, both at Leopoldville and later, at Ndola.
If that was the case, the British and Rhodesian authorities had not expected the Belgian mercenaries who reached the site of the crash to leave their calling card.
Evidence given by a medical examiner on the materials collected in the post mortem also confirm the rumour of a playing card, specifically the Ace of Spades having been seen either stuck behind Hammarskjold’s neck tie under his chin (unnamed reporter who was at the scene of the crash), or held in his left hand (medical witness sifting through the post-mortem photographs and report).
A recent documentary film made by Danish director, Mads Brugger in 2019 entitled, Cold Case Hammarskjold, (The Less-Cold Case of Dag Hammarskjold, James DiEugenio, Consortium News, September 18, 2021) showed a still picture purported to be that of Hammarskjold on a stretcher with what looked like a card protruding from behind his neck tie and his collar. DiEugenio calls it “the key piece of evidence.” This would prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that some party had been to the scene before the official rescue team and that their presence had been planned.
The Ace of Spades is generally thought of as the death card, but in this case, if the reports are true, it points directly to the perpetrators of the crime, and more importantly, it confirms that the crash was no accident.
The significance of the Ace of Spades is found in “Inside Africa”. John Gunther, casting for a suitable metaphor to describe the importance of the Congo to Belgium in the fifties, writes:
“Belgium is like an iceberg; the exposed fragment of motherland gets most of its weight, wealth, and substance from the huge submerged Congo mass underneath. The contribution of the colony to Belgium is enormous, if indirect, in several fields. To change the metaphor sharply, the Congo is the Belgian ace of spades.”
The card indicates that Belgian mercenaries were likely to be first at the crash site and this means that they were informed beforehand where the plane was likely to come down. The inescapable conclusion must be that they were sent there to get rid of evidence and to make the crash appear like an accident.
They had probably set fire to the remnants of the crashed plane, and it explains why the bodies of Hammarskjold and the survivor Julien were untouched by the flames. It also explains the curious fact of that all the items on the plane only Hammarskjold’s briefcase and the UN ’s crypto machine, were recovered intact from the site.
If, as evidence now revealed seems to suggest, Hammarskjold had been targeted and killed by parties who had benefitted from his death, those responsible had unwittingly changed this world in ways beyond their imagination.
It is not unreasonable to speculate that had the very pro-active Secretary-General not died in September of 1961, the hastily cobbled together Federation of Malaysia in 1963 might have undergone a more thorough scrutiny.
The obviously politically expedient and cursory assessment of the Michelmore UN mission of August – September, 1963 sent to Borneo by the new Secretary-General, U Thant, was a feeble attempt to placate Sukarno. Even Macmillan himself was skeptical: “I do not believe that Sukarno can be bought off with a fig leaf.” (Macmillan to Kennedy, 4th August, 1963, (British Documents on End of Empire, Malaysia, Series B, Volume 8, edited by A.J. Stockwell.)
The British establishment’s plans for its colonies were insincere and insouciant, made for a quick and convenient exit while protecting its existing commercial interests.
Peter Wright, a commoner who had climbed up to the highest echelons of the British secret service was well acquainted with the wiles of the British political elites:
“The fundamental problem was how to remove the colonial power while ensuring that the local military forces did not fill the vacuum. How, in other words, can you create a stable local political class? The Colonial Office were (sic) well versed in complicated, academic, democratic models – a constitution here, a parliament there – very few of which stood the remotest chance of success.” (Wright, pg.138)
The three Lords that had overseen the merger – George Nigel Douglas-Hamilton, the 10th Earl of Selkirk, Cameron Fromanteel Cobbold, the 1st Baron Cobbold and, mentioned above, Lansdowne - appeared to have done just that; produced a constitution that was in fact grafted on to the existing Malayan Constitution, with economically, culturally and politically crippling results.
Duncan Sandys, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, under whose office the two Borneo states were set adrift, and involved both in events in the Congo and in the creation of Malaysia, was himself embroiled in a sex scandal at the time.
His file was ordered sealed for a further 70 years in 1993 by the then Prime Minister, John Major. Any sexual peccadilloes, one might have thought, would surely cease to be scandalous in one hundred years, so there may be more ‘sensitive’ information in that file than that.
- In this series that will appear over the next few weeks, David CC Lim and Syn Chew look at what happened on the world stage when colonialism was being dismantled to understand the decisions that also had a bearing on the future of other colonies like British North Borneo (Sabah) and Sarawak.
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