OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 4.00PM
THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission has released documents which point to the involvement of the former South African government in the mysterious 1961 death of United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold.
TRC head of investigations Dumisa Ntsebeza said he acquired the documents while investigating another matter. He said they have been released in the public interest, but called for caution in making unfounded allegations about their contents.
The documents purport to be from the South African Institute for Maritime Research, thought to be an SA Defence Force front company, and contain details about plans to detonate a bomb in Hammarskjold’s aircraft soon after take-off from Elizabethville in the former Congo.
According to the documents the bomb was due to explode when the wheels were retracted. But it appears that if there was a bomb it exploded shortly before the aircraft was due to land at Ndola airport in the former Northern Rhodesia.
The documents also reveal alleged involvement of the American CIA and British MI5 in the plan. TRC chairman Bishop Desmond Tutu said it was of great concern that the TRC had been unable to investigate the allegations because the mandate for such TRC inquiries had expired. The issue had been reported to Justice Minister Dullah Omar for further investigation.
“We want to emphasise that we have been unable to investigate the veracity of these documents, and of the allegations that the South African or other Western intelligence agencies were involved in bringing about the crash,” Tutu said.