Document:More mysteries about the suspicious death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld

Hammarskjöld evidence suppressed

"The plot was successful as a report by agent 'Congo Red' details. ‘Report. Operation Celeste… 1. Device failed on take-off. 2. Despatched Eagle (illegible word) to follow and take (illegible words) 3. Device activated (illegible words) prior to landing. 4… 5. Mission accomplished: satisfactory."

 Article  by Chris Nicholson dated May 2024

---

Subjects: Dag Hammarskjöld, Stephen Mathias, Susan Williams, Henning Melber, Christelle Terreblanche, Göran Björkdahl, Mads Brügger, Alexander Jones, Dagmar Feil, Keith Maxwell, Patrick Wall, Brian Urquhart, Bud Culligan, Operation Celeste, SAIMR, Congo Red
Source: email (Link)

★ Start a Discussion about this document
More mysteries about the suspicious death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld

---

In this article I explore how serious an offence it is for an academic to suppress their own research in a matter of the gravest public importance? If that suppression is at the instance of large corporations does such an academic deserve to continue in a world where veracity is key and where falsification the academic form of treason? When that academic shares that information with a member of a very important institution and he continues that suppression of the truth does he deserve to keep his very influential posts?

The real mystery about this whole sordid saga is the roles of Professor Susan Williams and Professor Henning Melber. Williams is a courageous historian and author, based in London. Her latest book is "White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa", published in 2021. Her other publications include: "The People's King: The True Story of the Abdication", a book about the abdication of King Edward VIII, published in 2003; and "Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation", published in 2006, on which the 2016 film "A United Kingdom" is based. Of greater importance in this article is her book "Who Killed Hammarskjold?", first published in 2011 and updated in 2014.

Professor Henning Melber is a German, Namibian and Swedish political activist. He holds many prestigious posts including an Associate of the Nordic Africa Institute, Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria, and the University of the Free State, and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Commonwealth Studies/School for Advanced Study, at the University of London. Melber grew up in Esslingen am Neckar and Leutkirch in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He moved to Namibia in 1967 as a teenager and the son of German immigrants, and in 1970 graduated from the German Higher Private School Windhoek. In 1974, he joined the SWAPO liberation movement. From 1975 to 1989 he was banned from entering Namibia and until 1993 also to South Africa. After Namibian independence (21 March 1990) he returned to Windhoek where he stayed until 2000, when he moved to Sweden.

On 2 March 2024 an article entitled "UK and US accused of obstructing inquiry into 1961 death of UN chief" and subtitled "Governments said to be ‘dragging their feet’ in handing over evidence relating to death of Dag Hammarskjöld", appeared in The Guardian newspaper. The piece went on to record that the US and UK governments have been accused by university researchers of obstructing a United Nations inquiry into the 1961 plane crash that killed Hammarskjöld.

This took place at a conference in London in which an update on the whole matter was given by the UN Assistant Secretary General for Legal Affairs, Stephen Mathias. Mathias is an American lawyer and diplomat who was appointed to that post in May 2010. Before joining the UN had 23 years of experience in international law, at the US State Department for 20 years, including as Assistant Legal Adviser for United Nations Affairs. From 1992-1996, Mathias was the Counsellor for Legal Affairs at the United States Embassy in The Hague, where a focus of his work was the International Court of Justice.

The academics mentioned in the article were seeking archive documentation from member states. What was needed the academics insisted was potentially vital information that would enable an answer to be found to all the vexing questions in that regard. It will be recalled that Hammarskjöld, a Swede, died on 18 September 1961 on the way to negotiate a ceasefire between UN peacekeepers in the Congo and separatists from the breakaway Congolese region of Katanga. At the time he was on board a Douglas DC-6 airliner which crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), killing Hammarskjöld and the 15 other passengers.

Not much emerged from the first inquiry carried out by Rhodesian authorities which returned a verdict of pilot error, though few believed that finding. Other theories mooted included witnesses who said they saw another plane and flashes in the sky. Some US intelligence officers, who monitoring communications from Cyprus reported hearing communications consistent with the UN plane coming under fire.

The case was reopened by the UN in 2017 under a Tanzanian judge, who called for the appointment of independent officials to oversee the combing of archives in countries that might have relevant information. The academics said that ‘While Belgium, Sweden and Zimbabwe demonstrated serious efforts, the US and UK responses were wholly inadequate and showed contempt for the UN inquiry.’ This came from the organisers of the conference, including Williams and Melber, of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and the Westminster Association.

For an understanding of the proper sequence of events, it is necessary to quote material from two articles I wrote which appeared in the Daily News in Durban on 25 and 26 October 2016. The first was headed "Birth of a corporate monster" and subtitled "Who killed Dag Hammarskjöld?". The second part was headed "Murder incorporated." The facts mentioned in these pieces have been elaborated and updated in chapters 11, 12 and 13 of my new book "Who Really Killed Chris Hani?"

There is subsequent information about SAIMR from a very reliable source. Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) is a weekly news magazine founded in 1974 in Leesburg, Virginia in the United States. It maintains offices in a number of countries, including Wiesbaden, Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris, Melbourne and Mexico City. It clearly has access to large caches of information from intelligence agencies, round the world. In the Executive Intelligence Review article of 14 May 1993 entitled "Did British intelligence kill Hani?", the authors examined the background to his murder.

The report from EIR then said:

"Are there any British intelligence links to the plot? The answer is yes. According to South African intelligence sources Janusz Waluś, the man who shot Chris Hani, was intimately associated with the South African Institute for Maritime Research (SAIMR), about which, said one intelligence veteran, 'That's a very curious outfit. They have no naval guys in it, and they do no research.'"

If we are to investigate whether Waluś carried out the killing alone or as part of an organisation, the fact that he was ‘intimately associated’ with SAIMR is revealing. We are told that, ‘according to a November 1990 article in the Sunday Times of London, the SAIMR was founded as a mercenary group of elite special forces people operating throughout Africa. An investigation by one South African intelligence agency determined that SAIMR was a front for Britain's MI6.’

In July 1998 in Cape Town, South Africa just as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was winding up its task, a researcher Christelle Terreblanche was given a slender file on the assassination of Chris Hani in 1993. The file had been given to the TRC by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and was classified as secret. As Terreblanche glanced through the file her eyes lit up with shock and amazement. There were about twelve documents and they spoke graphically of events leading up to the death of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, on his visit to central Africa in 1961.

On 19 August 1998, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chairman of the TRC, held a press conference and released eight of the documents. He said that the TRC, whose mandate expired at the end of July 1998, was unable to investigate the veracity of the letters or the allegations that South African and/or Western intelligence agencies played a role in his air crash. Swedish aid worker, Göran Björkdahl, who investigated Hammarskjöld’s death said:

"It's clear there were a lot of circumstances pointing to possible involvement by western powers. The motive was there – the threat to the West's interests in Congo's huge mineral deposits. Hammarskjöld was trying to stick to the UN Charter and the rules of international law."

In 2014, Oxford scholar, Dr Susan Williams updated her book, "Who Killed Hammarskjöld?", and referred to the papers that Terreblanche had found, which provided proof of a plot with the sinister name of ‘Operation Celeste’. The letters were headed with the Johannesburg address of an organisation called the South African Institute for Maritime Research (SAIMR).

To understand the sequence of events leading to the death of Hammarskjöld, it is necessary to briefly look at the history of the Belgian Congo. After the First World War vast diamond deposits were found there and South African mining magnate Ernest Oppenheimer was quick to see the risk for his diamond monopoly. He bought up substantial shares in the company holding the diamond interests and as the Second World War approached De Beers was selling half of the Congo production to Germany and half to the US and the UK. The diamond production nearly doubled between 1936 and 1939 with ten million carats a year being sold.

The first to attempt to break the diamond monopoly shackles was Kwame Nkrumah, who thought Ghana’s best interests would be served by leaving the Syndicate and starting an independent sales area known as the 'Free Diamond Market' at Pra, near the Ghanaian capital of Accra. His dream was to set up the marketing capital of black Africa, and stop the dependence on apartheid South Africa. Another major worry for De Beers was the Belgian Congo, which was moving to independence and at the head of the newly elected government was Patrice Lumumba. He was a great admirer of Nkrumah and wanted to support his ideas on independent marketing of diamonds. In 1959 Lumumba had visited New York and told a group of American businessmen:

"The exploitation of the mineral riches of the Congo should be primarily for the profit of our own people and other Africans."

Dr Williams mentions in her book a handwritten letter to ‘Lieutenant’ Bob Wagner on 17 June 1947 by a man called F. Malan, the Commodore of SAIMR, who informs Wagner that Rear-Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the head of the Central Intelligence Group (later CIA) in the USA, was interested in events in the Union as well as South-West Africa (today Namibia), as he felt that the ‘Russkis’ (Soviet Union) would make ‘increasingly bold attempts to undermine His Majesty’s authority in these areas.’

Commodore Malan goes on to suggest that Wagner take up an offer to travel to America and learn something from the secret service there, as a way of advancing his position in SAIMR; his cover would be that of an expert in metallurgy and Anglo-American would provide him with the required accreditation and training. This mission would be ‘Top Secret’—‘under no circumstances must your connection to S.A.I.M.R. be revealed to anybody over there.’ That Anglo American was included must be because of their dominance of the South African and Namibian economies, through their mining and other economic concerns.

Nannie Dee wearing a Cutty Sark petticoat

Susan Williams has discovered that the logo on the SAIMR documents found by Christelle Terreblanche features a woman wearing a Cutty Sark (a short petticoat) and is clearly modelled on the woman, depicted in Robert Burns’s poem Tam O’ Shanter: the wanton witch Nannie Dee who beguiles a drunk Tam to dance. The sight of her dancing in such a short undergarment caused Tam to cry out, ‘Weel done, Cutty-sark’, which subsequently became a well-known catchphrase. Realising he is in trouble, Tam rides off on his horse pursued by Nannie, who grabs part of the horse’s tail. Subsequently a fleet of ships were named Cutty Sarks. On each ship was a figurehead of a bare-breasted Nannie Dee, with long black hair, holding a grey horse's tail in her hand.

The first Cutty Sark was a British clipper. Built on the River Leven, Dumbarton, Scotland in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end of a long period of design development, which halted as sailing ships gave way to steam propulsion. The ship's figurehead shows Cutty Sark, the nickname of the witch Nannie Dee who chases Tam o' Shanter, snatching his horse's tail before he escapes by crossing water.

Susan Williams wrote that Major Patrick Wall, Conservative MP and Royal Marine commando, was one British maritime expert, who took a keen interest in the Cutty Sark in the 1950s.

"He drew attention to the ship’s restoration in the House of Commons in 1960.

"In addition to enthusing about the clipper itself, Wall was a fervent supporter of a cause that the ship was seen to symbolise: the Cape Route between the UK and the Far East, which the Cutty Sark had sailed faster than any other clipper.

"She continues that ‘For Wall, as for many others on the political right wing, it was vital to keep the Cape Route open in order to resist Soviet Communism. He vigorously defended the Simonstown Agreement of 1955 between Britain and South Africa, which gave the Royal Navy the right to continue using its former South African base to protect the Cape Route. He regarded the Cape as the crossroads of British trade and the back door of NATO.'

"Wall thought the maritime power of England represented the golden age of an Empire created largely as a result of sea power. The ‘long-range sailing ships’ were the Cutty Sarks."

While Williams did not find an express link with SAIMR, the facts are revealing. She said that Africa was of great importance to Wall, who was a champion of white minority rule against the threat of African nationalism sweeping down from the north of the continent. SAIMR’s finances also have a British connection. Williams had a set of accounts for SAIMR for 1982-3, with an income of R900 000, present-day value R9 million. The income accrued from precious stones, medical clinics, ownership of a company registered on the Isle of Man, sale of information and proceeds of diving and sailing activities. The reference to the Isle of Man, links it with British intelligence. It is well-known that the Isle of Man is a popular tax haven and venue for laundering dirty money, so it might well have been utilised by British Intelligence to finance SAIMR.

Williams provided numerous facts and circumstances which showed that Wall must have been closely connected to SAIMR and that he would have had a motive to kill Hammarskjöld. She said that Wall’s reaction to Operation Morthor, the UN’s military offensive on 13 September 1961 against Moise Tshombe’s white mercenaries, was one of fury.

The links between Wall and the events in Africa were close. According to Williams, Wall bought land and property in Rhodesia in the early 1950s and became a trusted confidante of Roy Welensky. Less than two days after Hammarskjöld died, Welensky wrote to Wall ‘to express his anger at Conor Cruise O’Brien in particular and at the British government more generally’. He agreed with Wall’s strong opinions that the British would endeavour ‘to string the Northern Rhodesian thing out to separate it from Katanga’.

So, what sort of activities would SAIMR become involved in? Dr Williams has analysed further documents in the file dated 1960, which offer a commentary from Johannesburg on events in the Congo and the secession of Katanga in July 1960. Katanga had parted company with the rest of Congo at the behest of the mining companies, especially those controlled by Belgium mining giant Société Générale (SG) to avoid the great wealth falling into the hands of Lumumba and the Congolese people. The Katangan operations were being operated by Tanganyika Concessions Ltd (TANKS) which owned shares in SG subsidiary Union Minière and provided some of the management in those earlier times. TANKS was closely tied to Anglo-American, on whose board sat Harry Oppenheimer of De Beers and Anglo American. In the TANKS annual report, chairman Captain Waterhouse boasted that Union Miniere and TANKS had

"played no small part in enabling the independent African government of the province (Katanga) to establish itself.

"We have it on good authority," ‘Commodore’ reports to ‘Captain’ that "UNO will want to get its greedy paws on the province."

Katanga was crammed with minerals, including diamonds, copper, tin etc that was the economic strength of the Congo. The reference to the ‘greedy paws’ of the UNO must mean that the mining companies dominating the Katanga province were fearful of losing the unlimited treasure there. That the UNO wanted the minerals for itself is unthinkable and the only sensible meaning was that the UNO wanted to accede to the plan to redistribute the wealth to the people.

The next paragraph shows that ‘Commodore’ was involved in the military forces deployed there. He refers to SAIMR’s agent in the region, ‘Congo Red,’ and a possible need to bolster his combat units which would need to be prepared to take on Baluba warriors as well as UN forces. They would be given adequate quantities of 7.62 mm FN rifles. At that time the FN rifle was standard issue for South African troops and doubtless the SA Military could easily provide these. The Baluba warriors were the supporters of Patrice Lumumba who was hell bent on saving the mineral wealth for the Congolese people.

From the following paragraph it emerges very clearly that SAIMR was not part of the intelligence services, but a separate entity.

"At a meeting between MI5, Special Ops. Executive, and SAIMR," begins one of the documents, entitled ‘ORDERS,’ the following emerged:

"Dag has requested that blockbusters be shipped to Katanga via South Africa and Rhodesia— both Dr. V. (that is, Hendrik Verwoerd, the Prime Minister of South Africa) and Sir Roy (Welensky) have refused."

The role of Verwoerd and Welensky was very antagonistic to Lumumba and the UNO. Hammarskjöld needed arms to combat the rebels fighting fiercely to take away power from Lumumba’s democratically elected government. The sinister orders are then spelled out.

"UNO is becoming troublesome and it is felt that Hammarskjöld should be removed. Allen Dulles agrees and has promised full cooperation from his people. (He) tells us that Dag will be in Léopoldville on or about 12 Sep 61. The aircraft ferrying him will be a D. C. 6. in the livery of ‘TRANSAIR,’ a Swedish Company."

At the time Dulles was head of the CIA and responsible for numerous dirty tricks operations. If all covert operations needed the US President’s authorisation Dulles would have had to ask John F Kennedy who took office on 20 January 1961 to give the go-ahead for the assassination of Hammarskjöld. British secret service MI6 agent Neil Ritchie turned to Union Minière for help with better radio contact and the mining company smuggled a radio transmitter over the border. They also sent an engineer from Brussels, whose name was Loeb, to help set it up. Loeb arrived first in Salisbury, where he was assisted by Anglo American which had offices in the Rhodesian capital and was also active in the Northern Rhodesian Copperbelt.

Another document referred to by Williams makes mention of the next phase. The orders for the ‘removal’ of Hammarskjöld are given:

"Please see that Leo airport as well as Elizabethville is covered by your people as I want his removal to be handled more efficiently than was Patrice [Lumumba]. If time permits, send me a brief plan of action, otherwise proceed with all speed in absolute secrecy… If, and only if serious complications arise tell your agents to use telephone (illegible word) Johannesburg 25– 3513.

"OPERATION TO BE KNOWN AS ‘CELESTE'."

According to another of the documents, the CIA had provided a contact, codenamed ‘Dwight,’ who would be staying at the Hotel Léopold II in Elisabethville until 1 November 1961. The password was ‘How is Celeste these days?,’ to be followed by the reply: ‘She’s recovering nicely apart from the cough.’

It is plain that a considerable force was involved and there was a need for each person to assume a separate task in the overall objective. What is clear is the priority of the main target. The agents decided to concentrate on Hammarskjöld and postpone any attempt to target two others:

"We have a number of problems to sort out with regard to the operation, in order to arrange for all three of the targets to be affected, an enormous amount of planning will be required, in order to ensure the success of ‘Celeste,’ and taking into account the fact that time is of the essence, I would suggest that we concentrate on D. and leave the other two for some future date, possibly as early as next week or the week after.

"Dag will have to be sorted out on the 17th or 18th (he has an appointment in Ndola on the 18th or 19th) all my men as well as Congo Red’s people are in position.

"With a little luck, all will be well.

"Your servant,

"Commander."

Williams explains from the documents how the killing of Hammarskjöld was to take place.

"The operation involved the placing of a bomb, made of six pounds of TNT, on Hammarskjöld’s plane from Léopoldville to Ndola. It was to be placed beneath the undercarriage of the aircraft so that it would detonate soon after take-off, when the wheels were retracted. The TNT, along with ‘detonators, electrical contacts and wiring, batteries, etc.,’ should be made available by Union Minière ‘at all possible locations.'

"But the bomb apparently failed to explode on take-off and ‘Eagle’ was despatched — presumably in an aircraft to shoot at the Hammarskjold’s plane Albertina — activating the device prior to landing.

"The plot was successful as a report by agent Congo Red details. ‘Report. Operation Celeste… 1. Device failed on take-off. 2. Despatched Eagle (illegible word) to follow and take (illegible words) 3. Device activated (illegible words) prior to landing. 4… 5. Mission accomplished: satisfactory."

In 1976 Roland "Bud" Culligan, a CIA employee, confessed to shooting down the plane. His confession was then passed on to Florida Attorney General Robert Shevin, who passed it on to US Senator Frank Church, who was investigating shenanigans and murders by the intelligence community.

Other sources support these documents. The heads of state of Britain and the US were keen to kill Lumumba.

British Foreign Secretary Lord Home met with the US President, Dwight Eisenhower, on 19 September 1960 and heard Eisenhower "express his wish that Lumumba would fall into a river full of crocodiles."

Not even a week later British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Lord Home met Eisenhower and the minutes record that Lord Home, "raised the question why we had not got rid of Lumumba at the present time. If he came back into power there would be immediate stress on the Katangan issue, which would get us into all sorts of legalistic difficulties. He stressed now was the time to get rid of Lumumba.

Eisenhower told the Special Group of the NSC that "Lumumba had to be eliminated by any means."

In 1975, Larry Devlin, a CIA agent, told a US Senate Committee, chaired by Senator Frank Church, to investigate CIA attempts to assassinate a number of foreign leaders, that on August 18th, 1960, the NSC had met in Washington to discuss the Congo. Next day the CIA had authorised its Congo Station to proceed to replace Lumumba's government with a "pro-Western group."

In December 2013, the US State Department admitted that President Eisenhower authorised the murder of Lumumba.

In April 2013, in a letter to the London Review of Books, a British parliamentarian, Lord Lea of Crondall reported having discussed Lumumba's death with Baroness Park of Monmouth shortly before she died in March 2010. Park had been an MI6 officer posted to Leopoldville at the time of Lumumba's death, and was later a semi-official spokesperson for MI6 in the House of Lords. According to Lea, when he mentioned ‘the uproar’ surrounding Lumumba's abduction and murder, and recalled the theory that MI6 might have had "something to do with it", she replied:

"We did. I organised it."

So, the probabilities favour that Baroness Park and Larry Devlin must have worked together with the mining companies and SAIMR to carry out both murders.

The cooperation of big business and intelligence agencies is most sinister.

Although he would not elaborate on his statement former US President Harry Truman had strong feelings after the incident.

Truman commented that Hammarskjöld "was on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said when they killed him."

As Secretary General of the United Nations Hammarskjöld was, in a sense, the Prime Minister of the World, and the killing of him was possibly the worst single murder of all time. US President John F. Kennedy spoke shortly after Hammarskjöld's death and said he regretted that he had opposed the UN policy in the Congo.

JFK's praise was fulsome "I realise now that in comparison to him, I am a small man. He was the greatest statesman of our century."

I wrote the articles mentioned above as a result of reading a piece penned by Professor Henning Melber and Susan Williams, which appeared in the Durban Daily News of 21 September 2016. That piece made no mention of the fascinating details about SAIMR, the British and American intelligence agencies and Operation Celeste which were included in Susan Williams updated book.

On 26 September 2016 I sent an email to Melber:

"I read your article co-authored by Susan Williams in the Daily News of 21 September 2016. What interested me was not so much the contents but what you and Susan left out. I have read her updated book with the series of chapters on Operation Celeste, none of which appeared in your article. Can you satisfy my curiosity as to why this was excluded???"

I received no reply from Melber and sent a follow-up email on 17 October 2016 asking why he had not responded. I said:

"I have written an article about the death of Hammarskjöld which is annexed. It relies on Susan Williams' material which you omitted from your article. Could you pass it on to Dr Williams???"

The article annexed contained all the material on Operation Celeste and SAIMR which was suppressed. The news piece on the recent (March 2024) Hammarskjöld conference then mentions that Susan Williams, attended the conference. It states further that she is a ‘researcher whose 2011 book "Who Killed Hammarskjöld?" contributed to the reopening of the UN inquiry…’ That seemed most strange as she had updated her book, as I mentioned earlier, in 2014, with the amazing account of Operation Celeste. So, it seems her latest book was being suppressed. There is no indication from the report that the explosive allegations mentioned in my two articles about Operation Celeste and the other facts revealed in the messages, were ever ventilated at the recent conference.

Williams was quoted as saying that the US and UK were ‘global outliers’, and that ‘The most recent general assembly resolution to renew the investigation was co-sponsored by 142 UN member states out of 193 – but not by the US and the UK.’ So, the clear inference is that Williams was accusing the US and UK were hiding material that she was avidly seeking out. The piece on the conference went on to say that ‘Both the US and UK insisted they were providing full cooperation to the Othman inquiry.’ It quoted a US State Department spokesperson who said:

"The United States always considers Judge Othman’s inquiries with the utmost seriousness and has previously provided him with declassified documents."

There were similar sentiments from the British Foreign Office spokesperson who said:

"The UK has fully cooperated with the inquiry and will continue to do so. We have provided all the relevant information we hold."

Even more powerful were the words of Paul Boateng, the former UK High Commissioner to South Africa, who said:

"The work must continue because it is part of a wider struggle to support democracy, the international rule of law, and the UN, all under increasing threat. There must be no stone unturned to get at the truth. The suspected murder of a UN Secretary General is a crime too grave to be obliterated by time."

I contacted my friend Charles Courtney-Clarke from Namibia who was a great friend of murdered Anton Lubowski and knew the politics and economics of that land very well. Before I relate his response, it is necessary to note what Clarke and Lubowski were trying to achieve in Namibia. Lubowski asked the question:

"Why was Lüderitz, surrounded by the richest diamond fields and fishing waters in the world, so dirt poor, desolate, semi-destitute and seemingly forever headed for economic slavery?"

He joined SWAPO and fought for the poor and the oppressed for a share of the wealth of the country. The security police detained Lubowski six times - the last occasion being the worst, without trial for his brave work for SWAPO. Lubowski created the NAMLAW Institute that ‘analysed discriminatory political and economic legislation (specifically fishing and diamonds)’. He quickly assumed the leading role in these discussions, becoming SWAPO’s finance secretary. As such, he built up an unprecedented rapport with the SWAPO president. He also spearheaded the effort to level Namibia’s political and economic playing fields – further proof that he would become a thorn in the flesh to those who had monopolised the country’s fishing and mineral wealth for so long.

In March 1989 CIA operative Bill Ullman, employed by Maurice Tempelsman who plies his trade as the head of one of the world’s largest mineral consortiums, insinuated his way into Lubowski’s home to spy on him. Tempelsman worked closely with the De Beers diamond syndicate in Africa and elsewhere over the years. The mining companies knew that at some time or other, they would face a democratic government in Namibia, so they planned ahead to ingratiate themselves with the dominant party which was set to win the election.

A businessman and friend of Lubowski, Anton Charles Courtney-Clarke, was staying in the Lubowski house at the time of Ullman’s infiltration and said Ullman stole his briefcase from Lubowski’s desk at his home. Courtney-Clarke explained that his briefcase contained the seminal document that would create disquiet in the hearts of the industry and mining captains – the revolutionary National Economic Plan of Action for the new Namibia. This included the constitution of CONROC (Concerned Namibians Natural Resources Organisational Committee), formulated over a period of 10 years. CONROC was focused on identifying, shaping and realigning the country’s key industrial activities, including energy, mineral resources, agriculture, fisheries, property, tourism and financial institutes. It was a natural resources-based business initiative geared to enrich a nation endowed with such abundant natural resources. The group’s aims and objectives were, ‘motivated by the necessity to react to the increasing monopolisation and overexploitation by foreigners, of our natural resources.’ The objectives were furthermore ‘to devise strategies which will lead to increased ownership and control of the Natural Resources in the hands of bona fide Namibians in a mixed economy …’

So, what happened following Namibian independence? Were Lubowski and Clarke’s plans for redistribution of the wealth carried out? Doubtless at the head of the plans for the new Namibia would have been Professor Henning Melber. Perhaps we get close to finding out why he and Williams are suppressing the key information about the Hammarskjöld killing when we learn that from 1992 to 2000 he was Head of the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek. From 1994 to 2000 he was chairman of the de: Namibisch-Deutsche Stiftung in Windhoek.

It seems likely that under his watch the plans of Lubowski and Clarke to redistribute the wealth were thwarted and De Beers clung on to their riches, merely bribing the SWAPO leadership to join them in the plunder of the poor country. The article "Diamonds are SWAPO's best friends" appeared on 18 September 2014 in the Mail & Guardian. It was subtitled ‘Namibia’s elite have benefited from billions in rough diamonds over the past six years.’ This investigation found members and friends of Namibia’s ruling elite owned at least nine of the 11 ‘sightholder’ firms, and most were members of the Aawambo (formerly Ovambo) tribe, who dominate the SWAPO leadership. Statistics show that the Gini coefficient, which measures the gap between rich and poor, is the worst in the world in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, even after majority rule and the new parties’ hollow promises of benefits to the citizens.

Williams wrote a further article entitled "Revisiting Dag Hammarskjöld’s Mysterious Death – One man is known to have survived the infamous crash. Why was his testimony hidden?" This appeared on December 11, 2023 in the prestigious Yale Review but again omitted all mention of Operation Celeste and SAIMR and concentrated on what one passenger, Harold Julien, the acting chief security officer of the United Nations Operation in the Congo (known as ONUC), told the medical staff.

In her new article Williams says:

"In 2011, I published a book called "Who Killed Hammarskjöld?", which presented the case for a new inquiry into the crash."

Why did she not mention her explosive updated 2014 book with all the details about Operation Celeste and SAIMR? Had she forgotten about that? Surely not. So, she suppressed it.

Mads Brügger (Danish) and Göran Björkdahl (Swedish) have made an explosive film entitled "Cold Case Hammarskjöld", which has won many awards including the ‘Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary’ at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It opened in US movie theatres on 16 August 2019. The film deals with those responsible for the crash and implicates SAIMR. In November 2022, Brügger published a book in Danish about SAIMR entitled "Doktor Maxwell, formoder jeg?" The title of the book is a reference to "Dr Livingstone, I presume?" (the alleged greeting of Henry Morton Stanley when he met the famous English explorer). Given Susan Williams extensive knowledge of the facts of the crash as related above, it is not surprising that he contacted Williams with a view to assisting him with the movie. In Brügger's book he explains at paragraph 18 his appalling treatment at her hands. In passing we might mention that Christelle Terreblanche refused to assist him in making his film or appearing therein. Susan Williams, he recounts indicated in the strongest terms that she did not want to appear in his movie:

"She also would not share her source material with me, and eventually got a British law firm to write that if I so much as mentioned her or her book in my film, I would be sued."

Why would Williams go to such lengths and face danger to uncover the amazing circumstances surrounding the murder of Hammarskjöld and then spend such a lot of effort in covering it up. The same may be said for Melber, who recently was on radio courageously criticising Israel for its genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza.

The only conclusion that can reasonably be reached is that Williams and Melber have been got at by corporate and intelligence agencies to suppress the previous information found by Williams. And, indeed, what hypocrisy is it, to crucify the various governments for suppressing information, and refusing to put up documents, that could lead to the truth, on this most important matter, when in truth and in fact they are as engaged, if not more so, in the same reprehensible practice?

Should the institutions that employ them not be informed of these egregious practices and commence proceedings to have them dismissed or otherwise disciplined?