标题: 2021.09.16 达格-哈马舍尔德的神秘死亡是谋杀吗？ [打印本页] 作者: shiyi18 时间: 2022-9-17 23:17 标题: 2021.09.16 达格-哈马舍尔德的神秘死亡是谋杀吗？ The Economist explains
Was the mysterious death of Dag Hammarskjold murder?
Sixty years later, the fate of the UN’s second secretary-general remains contentious
Sep 16th 2021
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THE LAST CONTACT between the radio tower at Ndola, in what was then Northern Rhodesia, and the Albertina was at ten minutes past midnight on September 18th, 1961. The plane’s flaps were down, ready to land. Then silence. The search didn’t begin for ten hours. Five more passed before the authorities arrived at the crash site. Beneath the decapitated trees lay the wreckage of the DC-6, and nearby was the body of Dag Hammarskjold, the secretary-general of the United Nations. Compared with the charred bodies found among the wreckage it was oddly untouched. A playing card, the ace of spades, was in his collar.
Hammarskjold’s death shocked the world. A whip-smart statesman renowned for his ability to solve problems, he would always carry the organisation’s charter on his person. When his plane crashed in what is now Zambia, he was on his way to negotiate a ceasefire between Congo and the secessionist region of Katanga.
The crash is one of the great mysteries of the cold war. It remains contentious for two reasons. One is the lack of evidence. Only 20% of the plane was intact enough to be examined, initial investigations were flawed (some said they were deliberately botched) and many of those who might know something about what happened have kept schtum for personal or political reasons.
The other is the abundance of enemies Hammarskjold had made. Congo was a hotspot in the cold war, teeming with agents from America, Britain, the Soviet Union and West Germany. The country had immense mineral wealth, much of it concentrated in Katanga, including uranium, vital for the development of nuclear weapons. The UN had backed Congo, angering the Katangese and their ally, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Britain in theory supported the UN, but it would have suited British interests if Katanga had joined the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. America worried that the UN’s actions in Africa would hand the Soviet Union dominance over the continent. And the Soviet Union thought Hammarskjold a Western stooge. After the crash, Harry Truman, a former American president, coyly remarked that “they killed him”. “They”, it seems, could have been almost anyone.
Ignoring more outlandish explanations, three theories remain. The crash could have been a tragic accident. Rhodesia’s initial inquest found that the Albertina’s pilot erred, flying the plane into the ground. A UN report in 1962 left the verdict open, but thought it most probable that landing charts had caused the pilot to crash. But these explanations have holes. Though accidents do happen, the pilot was experienced and such a landing would have been routine. And several eyewitnesses reported lights in the sky around the plane, and that it caught fire before crashing.
The Albertina had been left unattended for a time before it picked up Hammarskjold. A bomb could have been planted or a stowaway could have climbed aboard, either to hijack the plane or to crash it. But a bomb designed to go off just before landing would have been expensive and technically challenging. No hard evidence of one exists. A stowaway is also unlikely—no extra body was recovered.
The third explanation is that another plane flew near the Albertina as it tried to land, either deliberately or accidentally, causing it to crash, either by forcing it to take evasive action or by downing it with warning shots. This would explain the eyewitness accounts, as well as tidbits other theories struggle with. In 2015 the UN reopened its investigation. Its first report found this explanation “plausible” and suggested that the governments involved ought to prove that they had made exhaustive checks of their records. It will report again in 2022.
When Hammarskjold died, this newspaper asked if the death of the UN would follow. That was overly pessimistic. Last year, 75 years after its founding, the UN renewed its commitment to the charter that Hammarskjold took everywhere. Yet the institution’s future is uncertain. As for what happened to Hammarskjold, the truth may never emerge. Memories fade, many involved are dead and governments continue to ignore requests to open their archives.
