Anglo-American Belgian culpability for the murders of African martyr Patrice Lumumba and UN Chief Dag Hammerskjold

 

They plundered nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America. They divided nations and people. They ransacked nations, brutally murdered and quelled every effort made by indigenous people to safeguard their lands from Western European intruders. They did this carrying the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other. They left these nations claiming to have given independence but devising deceitful ways to continue to strangulate these nations with democratic mantras. They offered not a single apology for the crimes against humanity, genocide, enslavement plunder and continue to ignore calls for reparations and apology. These same wrongdoers continue their conniving leaving a trail of horrendous crimes for which they remain immune by the laws they create in the legal framework they have designed and by judges they appoint. “Accountability” has meant naught for the West and only for the Rest.

This is the sad tale of international law and justice. An instrument of oppression of the black man, brown man and the yellow man by the white man. De – colonization has yet to truly liberate the oppressed and bring the Americans, English, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese and the Germans to justice for their crimes in Africa, Asia, Australia and both North and South America. It is convenient for them to avoid these issues, It would be a dereliction of duty for us to forget them, Justice cannot work only in one direction. It must work in both directions. The guilty must be brought to justice and punished. If they are not among the living today, then their crimes must be exposed, lessons learnt, and history re-written shaming them for what they were.

We now demand on behalf of the people of Africa an international independent commission of inquiry inclusive of eminent people of Africa, Asia and Latin America, on the panel to revisit the murders of the former Prime Minister of Congo Patrice Lumumba and UN Chief Dag Hammerskjold, and conduct a thorough investigation. For so long there have been only cover –ups in the name of official inquiries.

The younger generation must know that two significant deaths took place in Africa over half a century ago – both relating to the independence of Congo and the liberation of its people. The deaths of African freedom fighter Patrice Lumumba and the then UN Secretary – General Dag Hammerskjold.

What is damning about the 2 deaths is that the CIA, M15/M16, Belgium, UK and US Governments, white mercenaries backed by multinationals, the Maritime Institute of South Africa (SAIMR) with the complicity of Belgian mining conglomerate – Union Miniere are all accused of planning the killing of a serving UN chief arguably the most efficient and unbiased Secretary General the UN has ever had and giving orders to assassinate a democratically elected leader. All that the UN investigation of 1962 and 2 investigations by the Rhodesian Board of Investigation and the Rhodesian Commission of Inquiry revealed was “pilot error” though they could not rule out foul play. So why has foul play not been investigated? Exactly who killed the UN Secretary General is what needs to be unearthed. Dag Hammarskjold died because he sought to shield the newly independent nations of the world from the predatory instincts of the Great Powers and the plan to ensure white majority rule remained in Africa – this was not what the Anglo-Americans expected of any UN Secretary General, particularly a white

These dangers have increased with the death of the UN chief because it gave a strong signal to all successors of their own fate if they did not toe the line. No wonder these Governments have made sure that all UN Secretary General’s thereafter remained passive spectators to what the West decided for the rest of the world. The killing was a message and making a tacit agreement that no UN Secretary General was to function in a single-minded manner. This does not reveal much of the charming vocabulary that the White West associates with human rights, democracy, secularism, freedom of the press and what not if the Third World has to remain slaves in foreign clothing while officials in the UN must function no different – modern day Indian Sepoys like Navi Pillai!

However, these two deaths cannot be written off and forgotten as “pilot error”. No one has the right to snuff of the life of people simply because they stand in the way of mercenary objectives of a handful.

Let us look at some of the compelling evidence

• Why did the UK High Commission Lord Alport at the airport insist the UN chief had flown elsewhere delaying the search for the wreckage by 15 hours?
• Why were African eyewitness accounts not taken at the initial investigations?
• UK Guardian assisted by Swedish NGO researcher Goran Bjorkdahl interviewed 4 of these witnesses in 2011 now in their late 70s – all claiming to have seen a second plane and a ball of fire and the plane coming down. Do these accounts not collaborate with UN Secretary Generals’ top aides – Conor Cruise O’Brien and George Ivan Smith who believe the plane was shot down by mercenaries working for European industrialists in Katanga and believed that the British helped cover up the shooting. Both published a letter to the Guardian UK in 1992 giving their theory. Attempts had also been made on their lives.
• Why was the evidence of the lone survivor (Harold Julian) not taken into account and why was he kept in a hospital which had no equipment and died 5 days later when doctors say he could have been saved?
• Why is the 1998 South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission findings led by Desmond Tutu that published letters suggesting CIA, M15 and South African intelligence were involved in the sabotage of the aircraft being brushed aside?
• Why did the 3 investigations not note that the plane contained 201 live rounds, 342 bullets and 362 cartridge cases recovered from the crash site and the dead bodies – bullets were found on the bodies of 6 people (2 were Swedish guards). Did the UN investigation accept the British Rhodesian Authority version that the ammunition had exploded in the intense heat and happened to shoot into the humans present! Was this theory not refuted by Major C. Westell the ballistics authority?
• What does the US and UK governments have to say about the 1998 South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission claiming to have messages on letterheads of the South Africa Institute for Maritime Research from 1960 to Sept 17 1961 between a commodore and a captain that records CIA chief Allen Dulles saying “I want his removal to be handled more efficiently than was Patrice”. These documents resemble similar ones from SAIMR found in 1991 when headed by Keith Maxwell-Annandale showing how SAIMR masterminded the abortive 1981 coup to depose Seychelles President Albert Rene as well as the successful coup in Somalia in 1990.
• Why were the British and the Belgiums funding secessionists in Katanga which the UN chief knew and was concerned about – do these links with terrorist groups not prevail even now?
• Count Harold D’Aspremonth Lynden, then Belgian Minister for African Affairs, sent a telegram to Belgian officials in the Congo stating “the main aim to pursue in the interests of the Congo, Katanga and Belgium is clearly Lumumba’s definitive elimination”.
• Can the US deny links to Mobutu who is described as “CIA’s Man” and how many other rebels do foreign governments sponsor?
• Why are the minutes of the National Security Council of 21 July 1960 not taken into consideration?
• What about the Church Committee report on the Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders with CIA accepting responsibility for plotting to kill Lumumba?
• Two messages by CIA chief Dulles that “Dag is becoming troublesome… and should be removed” / “I want his removal to be handled more efficiently than was Patrice” from the documents produced by the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission certainly points to CIA involvement.
• What about the article by Mary Braid to the Independent of 8/20/98 “In 1992, ex-U.N. officials said mercenaries hired by Belgian, U.S. and British mining companies shot down the plane, as they believed their businesses would be hurt by Hammarskjold’s peace efforts.”
• Why have comments by former UN military information head Bjorn Egge’s claim that he noticed a round hole in Hammerskjold’s forehead which Susan Willliams also notes in her book never delved into?
• Susan Williams’ a senior research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London published in 2011 a book “Who killed Hammarskjold” concluding that the plane carrying the UN chief was brought down which initiated a 5 member panel investigation in 2012 but it was led by a British jurist and there was no African representation.
• Can we also ignore the newspaper headlines – “Never even during Suez have Britain’s hands been so bloodstained as they are now” (Indian Express), “Britain: The Murderer” (The Ghanian Times) ….”The history of the decade of the sixties is becoming the history of political and international murders. And one of the principal culprits in this sordid turn in human history is that self-same protagonist of piety—Britain”.

Even the pro-western media ensures media coverage to back Western agendas. Likewise The New York Times repeatedly referred to Lumumba as a “dictator”, a “ruler” and “messiah” claiming he was guilty of embezzlement and election fraud. Do we not see this same trend today?

It took 50 years for the UN to honor such a charismatic leader who was the only UN chief to receive a Nobel Peace Prize posthumously i.e. after his death. And now, more than fifty years after the incident, it has been announced that a new inquiry Chaired by British lawmaker and former trade unionist David Lea (which is not official) is being established to attempt to determine the cause of the crash.

Patrice Lumumba’s son Francois and Hammerskjold’s nephew Knut have both called for a fresh investigation in the light of the incriminating evidence that has emerged.

But no investigation can leave out on its panel African representation. A new investigation by the West cannot lead to another 50 years of silence. Therefore, it is urged that Africa and Congo insist that members of the African community together with independent Asian and Latin Americans be represented at an international investigation to finally put the puzzle together as to why Dag Hammerskjold and Patrice Lumumba were killed and who were responsible for their murders.

At a time when the nations of Asia are under tremendous pressure with allegations and insistence on investigations and threats to bring leaders for war crimes trials it is poignant to ask why is there silence in the so called international community and even within the United Nations Organisation on the incriminating evidence against the very nations that are pointing fingers at others.

How can the UN promise justice and truth and the equality of law if Western Governments assassinate leaders and all those who stand in their way while they receive all the financial backing from the multinationals and their mercenaries because they are only interested in plundering nations to expand their personal profits. What is the current stand of the UN on the murders of Patrice Lumumba and Dag Hammerskjold? The ostrich like behavior of UN Chief Ban Ki-moon may save his skin but not his reputation. He is a far cry from people of the caliber of Dag Hammerskjold.

With the UN turning out to be a scandalous organization shielding war criminals of the colonial west and interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign nations at the behest of predatory western colonial nations, where can one turn to to find justice for the people of the world?

Shenali Waduge
Sri Lanka