UN Secretary-General Guterres urges a renewed commitment to solve mystery of Hammarskjöld’s death

UN Secretary-General Guterres urges a renewed commitment to solve the mystery of Hammarskjöld’s death and thanks the Institute of Commonwealth Studies for the ‘significant development’ of a recent major conference

Secretary-General António Guterres has endorsed the newly-released report of Justice Mohamed Chande Othman, who has been leading the UN investigation into the plane crash that led to the deaths of Dag Hammarskjöld, second UN Secretary-General, and fifteen others with him on a mission of peace for the Congo. The crash occurred in 1961 near Ndola in Zambia, then British-ruled Northern Rhodesia.

Guterres draws attention to the ‘significant new information’ in Othman’s 2024 report and advocates that the investigation should continue.

At this juncture, Justice Othman assesses that ‘it remains plausible that an external attack or threat was a cause of the crash’. The alternative hypotheses are that the crash resulted from ‘sabotage, or unintentional human error’.

It is ‘almost certain’, notes Othman, that ‘specific, crucial and to date undisclosed information’ exists in the intelligence and other archives of UN Member States: ‘the three key Member States that are most likely to hold significant undisclosed information, being South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States, have not disclosed any new material information since 2017.’ These Member States have not responded to his specific queries, which were personally followed up by Secretary-General Guterres.

Othman states that ‘singular recognition’ is due to Dr Susan Williams, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, whose 2011 book Who Killed Hammarskjöld? presented the case for a new inquiry and led to the establishment of a commission of eminent jurists, chaired by Sir Stephen Sedley, former Lord Justice of Appeal and Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at SAS. This commission of jurists recommended that the UN re-open an earlier, but inconclusive, inquiry in 1962. In response, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in December 2014 to take this recommendation forward.

Justice Othman highlights the ‘significant development’ of a daylong conference held at SAS on 29 February 2024 by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the United Nations Association Westminster, in order to support the UN investigation and to communicate widely the fruits of recent research. The conference was addressed by Lord Paul Boateng (former UK High Commissioner to South Africa), Ambassador Jan Eliasson (former UN Deputy Secretary-General), Stephen D Mathias (UN Assistant Secretary General for Legal Affairs), Her Excellency Macenje Mazoka (Zambian High Commissioner to the UK), and distinguished academics from SAS and globally. Among other conclusions, there was a consensus that the mandate of the UN investigation should be renewed. The conference proceedings can be studied here.

Professor Kingsley Abbott, Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, said: ‘It is very much to be hoped that the UN General Assembly will approve the renewal of the investigation into Hammarskjöld’s death, and that there will be continued scholarly engagement with this vital marker of the role of the UN in the contemporary world.’