The US and UK have been accused by university researchers of obstructing a United Nations inquiry into the 1961 plane crash that killed the UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld.
A conference in London heard an update from the UN assistant secretary general for legal affairs, Stephen Mathias, on progress in the inquiry, which is seeking archive documentation from member states. The participants said the US and UK had been dragging their feet in handing over potentially vital information.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. […]
“While Belgium, Sweden and Zimbabwe demonstrated serious efforts, the US and UK responses were wholly inadequate and showed contempt for the UN inquiry,” said the organisers of Thursday’s conference, the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and the Westminster United Nations Association.
Susan Williams, a researcher whose 2011 book Who Killed Hammarskjöld contributed to the reopening of the UN inquiry, said the US and UK were “global outliers”.
“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,” Williams said. Läs artikel