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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Controversial knowledge
One of the outstanding mysteries of the twentieth century, and one
with huge political resonance, is the death of Dag Hammarskjold and
his UN team in a plane crash in central Africa in 1961. Just
minutes after midnight, his aircraft plunged into thick forest in
the British colony of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), abruptly ending
his mission to bring peace to the Congo. Across the world, many
suspected sabotage, accusing the multi-nationals and the
governments of Britain, Belgium, the USA and South Africa of
involvement in the disaster. These suspicions have never gone
away.British High Commissioner Lord Alport was waiting at the
airport when the aircraft crashed nearby. He bizarrely insisted to
the airport management that Hammarskjold had flown elsewhere - even
though his aircraft was reported overhead. This postponed a search
for so long that the wreckage of the plane was not found for
fifteen hours. White mercenaries were at the airport that night
too, including the South African pilot Jerry Puren, whose bombing
of Congolese villages led, in his own words, to 'flaming huts
...destruction and death'. These soldiers of fortune were backed by
Sir Roy Welensky, Prime Minister of the Rhodesian Federation, who
was ready to stop at nothing to maintain white rule and thought the
United Nations was synonymous with the Nazis. The Rhodesian
government conducted an official inquiry, which blamed pilot error.
But as this book will show, it was a massive cover-up that
suppressed and dismissed a mass of crucial evidence, especially
that of African eye-witnesses. A subsequent UN inquiry was unable
to rule out foul play - but had no access to the evidence to show
how and why. Now, for the first time, this story can be told. Who
Killed Hammarskjold follows the author on her intriguing and often
frightening journey of research to Zambia, South Africa, the USA,
Sweden, Norway, Britain, France and Belgium, where she unearthed a
mass of new and hitherto secret documentary and photographic
evidence.
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