Cover Story Black History Month
Right: Hammarskjöld arrives in Leopoldville on a peace mission in mid-September 1961. His welcoming party includes General Joseph Mobutu (l) and Premier Cyrille Adoula (second left). Far right: The still smouldering debris from the plane crash that killed him, and fifteen others, five days later
1960s and then a career diplomat in the Swedish Foreign Service. Rosio produced a report in 1993, in which he concluded that
the “least improbable” cause for the crash was CFIT – “Controlled Flight Into Terrain”. According to this theory, the pilot made an error in judgement regarding altitude, due to a sensory or opti- cal illusion, which made him fly too low and crash into the trees. Rosio’s perception of the crash was not new, judging by a Brit-
ish official document from October 1961. Tis records that after a nine-day visit to Ndola, Rosio visited the first secretary at the Brit- ish embassy in Leopoldville and said he was “personally satisfied that the crash was an accident and had been due to pilot’s error”. He then listed the reasons why Swedish experts were critical
of the Rhodesian investigation. Rosio’s purpose, reported the first secretary to the Foreign Office in London, “was I believe to help us and the Rhodesian authorities ... and to give us the opportunity to avert subsequent criticism, particularly by the Afro-Asians”.
Serious concerns Not one of these investigations has laid to rest the continuing suspicions about the crash of the plane that ended the lives of Sec- retary General Hammarskjöld and the other passengers and crew. Conspiracy theories have proliferated – in the press, in books,
and especially on the internet. But, in addition, serious legitimate concerns have failed to go away, even after nearly 50 years. In 2005, Major General Bjorn Egge, a Norwegian who had been
the UN’s head of military information in the Congo in 1961, with the rank of a colonel, suggested that Hammarskjöld had a round hole in his forehead that was possibly consistent with a bullet hole. Now 87 years of age, Egge explained in a statement to the
Norwegian newspaper, Aftenposten, that straight after the crash in 1961, he had been sent to Ndola to collect the secretary general’s cipher machine and his briefcase, and had been allowed to see his dead body in the mortuary. Te body seemed to have a hole in the forehead. Egge said: “He was not burnt as were the other ... casualties,
but had a round hole in his forehead. On photos taken of the body, however, this hole has been removed. I have always asked myself why this was done. Similarly, the autopsy report has been removed from the case papers. Again, I ask why?” He added: “When I saw Hammarskjöld’s body at the hospital, two British doctors were present but not very willing to cooperate. However, I noticed the hole in Hammarskjöld’s forehead in particular.” Egge qualified his statement carefully in an interview with
Aftenposten 10 days later. He said there was no tangible evidence that Hammarskjöld’s death was the result of a conscious act by a third party, but that circumstantial evidence pointed in this direction. Tere have been ongoing suspicions, too, about the bullets
found in the bodies of two of the security guards; the presence of these bullets was attributed by the Rhodesian inquiry report to the explosions of cartridge cases in the fire. But at the time, the bullets led to considerable suspicion, ex- pressed in particular by Major C. F. Westrell, a Swedish explosives
58 | October 2011 | New African
Dag’s death have abounded. But in addition, serious, legitimate concerns have failed to go away, even after nearly 50 years.”
expert. “From my experience,” said Westrell, “I can firmly state that ammunition for rifles, heavy machine-guns and pistols can- not, when heated by fire, eject bullets with sufficient force for the bullets to get into a human body.” He based this statement on the results of some large-scale experi-
ments to investigate the danger for firemen in approaching burning ammunition stores. His opinion was shared by Arne Svensson, chief of the technical department of the police in Stockholm, who said that if bullets were found in any of the victims of the air crash, they must have passed through the barrel of a weapon. He also said that if a security guard had had an ammunition
pouch placed close to his body and the ammunition was exploded by the heat of the fire, the walls of the pouch would have dimin- ished the power of the explosion. In such circumstances, it is almost impossible for the bullets to go through clothes. Tese suspicions about the bullets have persisted. Questions have also been asked about holes in the aircraft:
whether or not they had been caused by bullets. One of these holes was a perforation in the nose dome, with a
fracture immediately below it; this was described by the Forensic Ballistics Department of the Northern Rhodesian Police as dam- age caused by impact, with the qualification that it was “extremely difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain with absolute accuracy the cause”.
“Conspiracy theories about
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