Chilly Case Hammarskjöld
Directed by Mads Brügger, 2019; Re-released BBC Storyville, 2024.
In worldwide relations we’re inured to the world of conspiracy principle, whereas in digital filmography the expression “the digicam by no means lies” is equally mistrusted. Here’s a mission which requires each our theoretical and cinemographic scepticism. In April 2024 BBC’s Storyville Sequence broadcast the 2019 Danish investigative movie, Chilly Case Hammarskjöld by Danish movie maker Mads Brügger. With this movie like all retrospective history-gazing, we’re inevitably confronted with the ugliness of the current. On the entrance and centre is not only UNSG Dag Hammarskjöld’s loss, the UN’s standing or AIDS conspiracy theories – however the truth that world society stays as divided because it was again in 1961 when Hammarskjold died.
Chilly Case Hammarskjöld is a documentary analyzing the 1961 aircraft crash that killed Hammarskjöld and suggesting the involvement of rightist militia performing for mining companies focusing on Hammarskjöld. It examines how vested company pursuits have been alarmed by the UN chief’s overt anti-colonialism. It additionally features a provocative declare that the identical white supremist teams who have been concerned in army weaponizing – additionally welcomed AIDS (and conceivably exploited) bogus clinics in South Africa to assist unfold it. The movie plot is troublesome to observe for these unfamiliar with the idiosyncrasies of the interval, so is summarised right here.
The movie investigates the likelihood that Hammarskjöld’s aircraft, which crashed in Northern Rhodesia, was shot down by Belgian-British mercenary pilot Jan van Risseghem, employed by shady company pursuits. After unsuccessful makes an attempt to conclusively show that principle, it focuses suspicion on the South African Institute for Maritime Analysis (SAIMR), with two recent witnesses. Cinemographically, sections of the film are meta-cinematic, depicting docudrama plot sequences depicting two African secretaries reflecting on the motivations of the filmmaker. There may be helpful contemporaneous information footage of the period, and its interweaving with these narratives is compelling.
In regard to new bodily proof concerning the aircraft crash the path runs chilly. Mads Brügger companions with Swedish journalist Göran Björkdahl, who believed he possessed an element from the Albertina, Hammarskjöld’s Douglas DC-6B plane. They examine the speculation {that a} Fouga CM.170 Magister downed the Albertina close to Ndola, after a bomb-plant failed in Lubumbashi. This isn’t authenticated. Close to Ndola Airport, Brügger and Björkdahl (most likely) find the buried wreckage of the Albertina, however are ultimately prohibited by state officers from excavation.
The movie strikes to South Africa, the place in 1998 the Fact and Reconciliation Fee revealed a doc concerning the assassination of Hammarskjöld. Brügger and Björkdahl hint SAIMR, by way of its deceased chief, Keith Maxwell. Brügger and Björkdahl get better the second a part of the autobiography of Maxwell, which alleges the involvement of SAIMR within the Hammarskjöld assassination. The ultimate a part of the movie brings ahead two new witnesses as former SAIMR members. They allege that SAIMR was a serious clandestine mercenary group.
The primary witness claims the taking part in card depicted in one of many photographs of Hammarskjöld’s corpse is a covert sign of CIA involvement. It’s believable that TRC references to Hammarskjöld haven’t been adequately analyzed. These papers, regraded as credible by the TRC, actually recommend {that a} white militia, working with the assist of the C.I.A. and British intelligence, orchestrated the 1961 aircraft tragedy.
The movie, which received awards on the 2019 Sundance Movie Pageant, not solely raises the difficulty of worldwide collusion within the alleged downing of Hammarskjöld’s aircraft, however equally sinister options about AIDS. Within the movie a former militia member (and SAIMR affiliate) claims that his group used bogus vaccinations within the early Nineteen Nineties to unfold H.I.V. The suggestion was that this was an unlimited White supremist black operation. “We have been at warfare,” stated the previous militia member, Alexander Jones. “Black folks in South Africa have been the enemy.” These claims have been vigorously disputed by the medical and scientific group.
Certainly, after the movie’s launch, AIDS specialists stated the movie’s declare — which arose in interviews with the previous militia member, have been not more than conspiracy principle. “One harmful consequence of those allegations is that they’ve the potential to sow distrust and suspicion of docs and the medical institution, and that they could confuse folks about how H.I.V. is transmitted,” stated Rebecca Hodes, the director of the AIDS and Society Analysis Unit on the College of Cape City.
There isn’t a medical consensus why H.I.V. struck sub-Saharan Africa so arduous. That disagreement, and disproportionately excessive an infection charges amongst blacks, gave rise to conspiracy theories, together with that the illness had been perversely created through the faltering years of white supremacist rule. Jones claimed that extremists deployed science “to eradicate black folks.” Whereas the filmmakers current Mr. Jones as a whistle-blower, there are inconsistencies within the proof he presents through the movie. The medical science about “rightist misuse of drugs” additionally seems spurious.
It’s noteworthy that when the filmmakers shared their information and sought joint-authorship with The New York Instances, the latter declined. There may be (nonetheless) a caveat made by Danish producer Peter Engel that: “Journalists…ought to take care to contextualize the allegations,” and to contemplate that trendy medical clinics…are regulated in methods which didn’t exist within the Eighties on the finish of the apartheid period.” What’s refreshing concerning the work of those two journalists is that removed from behaving as cranks, they’ve undertaken exhaustive old school reportage, interviewing eye-witnesses to the crash, and looking for out individuals who knew about these mysterious AIDS clinics.
A UN panel concluded that there was “persuasive proof that the plane was subjected to some type of assault or risk.” No motion was ever taken in response to those important conclusions. We’re additionally reminded that rightist militias have been accused of gross abuse of energy, together with murdering their former researcher, Dagmar Feil in 1990. The appropriate-wing extremist Keith Maxwell, stays a mysterious determine. The Hammarskjold paperwork which surfaced within the late Nineteen Nineties, might nicely implicate Maxwell within the potential downing of the UN aircraft, however they continue to be unverified.
SAIMAR recruited ex-military operatives for international operations. Maxwell, who reportedly died in 2006, actually organized medical clinics in South Africa whereas being quoted as “hoping AIDS would possibly decimate the black inhabitants”. This hyperbole is an extended step from a germ warfare marketing campaign, nevertheless it raises suspicion. Adrian Hadland, of the College of Stirling interviewed Maxwell and cautions in opposition to his claims. This author would recommend {that a} “wildcard” like Maxwell may need motivation, however this movie has did not ship the arduous proof.
The movie is directed by Mads Brugger, a Danish journalist who beforehand starred as a European adventurer in Central Africa within the 2012 documentary, “The Ambassador.” As results of that movie on “passports on the market”, Liberia took authorized steps to prosecute Brügger, though Denmark was not requested for Brügger’s extradition. It have to be harassed nonetheless that Brugger has a repute for diligent analysis.
If one was to explain worldwide reception on the authenticity of the Chilly Case Hammarskjöld story-line, this may be “extremely sceptical.” As to the credibility of the movie’s obvious key findings (a) that Hammarskjold’s aircraft was probably downed in successful organized by mining pursuits, and that (b) the identical outfit have been additionally engaged in black operations comparable to spreading AIDS, the summarization must be the identical.
Nonetheless, the place this movie has a particular level is the reluctance to correctly examine two such vital allegations. On this matter the movie has a powerful argument. What the film-makers try to do in an amateurish manner e.g. excavate the positioning, and to scope SAIMAR, are each duties that ought to have been carried out professionally on the time. No celebration has but expressed curiosity in full-scale forensic-investigation. Trendy investigative strategies are extremely probably so as to add to our factual information on issues which nearly actually pertain to critical wrongdoings.
Conspiracy theories proliferate the place correct inquiry will not be carried out, so this movie provides to our evidence-base. We should always now confirm the aircraft website and the standing of Maxwell’s Clinics. The inferences about Hammarskjold’s aircraft and AIDS vaccination appear outlandish with out impartial investigation, and this movie suggests benefit in such work. In July 2019, Chilly Case Hammarskjöld was nominated for a European Parliament Lux Prize. It has now received quite a few worldwide awards. One suggests this actually helps extra investigative reporting.
From an IR perspective essentially the most salient level is that we possess a filmographic “smoking gun”. The aircraft crash and any involvement of rightist teams in public well being benefit thorough examination by trusted authorities. The choice is idle hypothesis or nonetheless worse, a perception that the worldwide group prefers to be blind to the reality. When Sergio de Mello was killed to the UN’s gross embarrassment in Baghdad in August 2003, it appeared the file couldn’t be closed quick sufficient. For individuals who remembered 1961, it will need to have appeared like historical past repeating itself.
The producers of Chilly Case Hammarskjöld have assembled new witnesses and beforehand unheard professional opinion (comparable to former US defence officer Charles Southall), and their movie reveals that key questions need to be answered. What these journalists present might be one thing no much less necessary than what they’ve confirmed – specifically that the worldwide group and the UN itself- ought to encourage transparency concerning the important occasions of the previous.
Additional Studying on E-Worldwide Relations
