A message from the Chair
This section was first started by Richard Bourne to give a monthly update for readers and supporters of The Round Table journal on developments leading up to the centenary celebrations of our journal (started in the Edwardian era).
Due to its popularity, it is now being continued by the new Chair of the editorial advisory board, (known since the early twentieth century as the Moot), Stuart Mole.
View the messages by selecting any of the links below:
September 2011
50th Anniversary of the death of Dag Hammarskjöld
Fifty years ago this month, the world was shocked to learn of the sudden death of the second United Nations Secretary-General, the death of Dag Hammarskjöld. The circumstances of his death were unexplained. At that time, Hammarskjöld was at the eye of a storm. A UN peacekeeping force was in the newly-independent Congo but had not been able to prevent the deposition, abduction and murder of the Congo's charismatic Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba. This had led to widespread criticism among African and Asian countries in particular, and from the Soviet Union. Security Council approval was given for an enhanced peace-keeping operation and UN troops entered Katanga province but were soon in conflict with secessionist forces. France and the Soviet Union had withheld support for the new UN mission and, with others, argued that its mandate was being exceeded. Powerful commercial, military and political interests wanted Moise Tshombe, Katanga's puppet leader, to remain in power, and Belgian and other foreign mercenaries were enlisted for this purpose.
With the UN mission under criticism from all quarters, Hammarskjöld sought to initiate peace negotiations. Flying at night to avoid Katangese fighter planes, Hammarskjöld and his personal staff travelled from Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) to Ndola, in what was then the British Colony of Northern Rhodesia. At 11.30 on the night of 17 September, Hammarskjöld's DC-6 "Albertina", with its Swedish crew, radioed Ndola control tower that it was overhead. Contact was then lost though local witnesses reported seeing a bright flash. Some fifteen hours later, a search party found the wreckage of the "Albertina" six miles away from Ndola. Hammarskjöld and all but one of his fifteen crew and companions were dead. The badly-burned survivor, Sgt. Harold Julien, spoke of explosions before the crash. Expected to survive, he died some days later, reportedly of uremia following kidney failure.
Mystery has surrounded the tragedy ever since, with many suspecting foul play. This is an issue tackled directly by Susan Williams, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. In her new book, Who Killed Hammarskjöld?, she argues that the official inquiry by the Rhodesian government was a massive cover-up which suppressed or dismissed key facts pointing to foul play. Williams unearths crucial evidence and obtains new testimonies which indicate that there was a second plane in the sky at the time. It is not, she admits, tantamount to a 'smoking gun' - but it does support the probability that the "Albertina" was brought down by a second plane.
Six months after Hammarskjöld's death, US President, John F. Kennedy, made a startling admission. He regretted the pressure that had been put on Hammarskjöld to adopt US policy in the Congo. This the Secretary-General had resisted, with the words: "I do not intend to give way to any pressure, be it from the East or West: we shall sink or swim". In the aftermath of his death, Kennedy said: "I realise now that in comparison to him, I am a small man. He was the greatest statesman of our century".
Was Hammarskjöld deserving of that epitaph? Many believe so. He was the only UN Secretary-General to die in office (and the only person to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously). An untimely death - martyrdom, even - often creates its own mystique, shutting out any objective assessment of its value. Yet in his eight years in office, it is widely accepted that Hammarskjöld made three substantial and lasting contributions to the United Nations and to global peace and security. First, he initiated UN peace-keeping operations, establishing guidelines which have endured to this day; second, in dealing with over twenty international crises, he established the importance of preventative diplomacy - of acting at a very early stage of the crisis; third, he championed the UN as an international and independent resource (despite pressures from Cold War interests).
His predecessor as UN Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, had been forced out of office by the hostility of the Soviet Union and by a loss of confidence in America, whipped up by Senator Joe McCarthy's anti-Communist crusade. Hammarskjöld had to face similar pressures. The Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, taunted him with the accusation that he "cannot muster the courage to resign". Speaking to the General Assembly, he said: "It is not the Soviet Union, or indeed any other Big Power, who needs the United Nations for their protection: it is all the others ... the representative of the Soviet Union spoke of courage. It is very easy to resign. It is not so easy to stay on. It is very easy to bow to the wishes of a Big Power. It is another matter to resist ... I shall remain in my post".
Hammarskjöld was an unexpected UN Secretary-General. But his outstanding qualities of leadership remain a shining example for others - whether for the UN, or indeed for the Commonwealth.
Stuart Mole